from Pierr LeBrun of ESPN,

The pressure is on. At this point, a whole season can be saved. Once games start to get cancelled past Nov. 2, both owners and players start to lose money they won’t get back.

"If we end up missing and not rescheduling games through Nov. 2, we will have over $330 million in lost revenue," Daly told ESPN.com Monday morning.

No question, the league and owners want to instill the fear of God into players this week with that notion. As one NHL team executive told ESPN.com Sunday, there’s either a deal this week or there’s no season at all because he believes the moderate owners who have pushed hard for a deal to be made will be so infuriated with players that they'll line up behind the hard-line owners and allow this thing to go nuclear if there’s no agreement this week.

I'm not ready to go that far. Labor negotiations in pro sports tend to produce fictitious deadlines that are moved when it's convenient. So I suspect if enough traction and progress has moved both sides closer by the end of this week, Bettman's Thursday, Oct. 25, deadline can be pushed a little.

But no matter how you look at it, if you’re an owner or a player who wants a full 82-game season, you want the leader on your side to deliver the goods this week.

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