from Frank Seravalli of Frequent Flyers,

For NHL Players’ Association executive director Donald Fehr, a trip to Caesars on Saturday night was like hitting the jackpot.

It was a chance to address nearly 30 of his constituents in a two-hour meeting and address the media without a rebuttal from the NHL....

Here’s the most important question and answer of the session:

Question: Is it too soon for the media to be talking about decertification?

Fehr: “I don’t want to tell you what’s too soon. You can look at what’s happened in the other sports and make your own judgment about that.”

In other words, Fehr hints at the possibility but won’t commit to it. It’s what you do in negotiations. As we wrote on Black Friday, the NHLPA needs to leak the threat of decertification, it’s part of the MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) game theory.

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