from Larry Brooks of the NY Post,

So The owners and the owners’ commissioner are nearly a month into the lockout — one they designed and implemented in a naked power play to force the players to their knees. And do you know why they did it? Because they can, that’s why. Because they believe themselves to be entitled, that’s why. Because they own the keys, that’s why.

None of that changes because the players haven’t presented a new proposal to the NHL over the last month. None of that changes because some players have opted to play in Europe.

This notion that somehow there’s a shared responsibility for the dark NHL rinks across the continent is, well, to borrow a phrase, a bunch of malarkey.

One side, and one side only, has offered concessions in an attempt to settle this dispute and have a season. That’s the players’ side. It is not a concession when the owners and their commissioner agree to accept fewer concessions from the players than originally demanded in the league’s July 13 Declaration of Economic War against the NHLPA.

That does not represent a compromise on the part of the Lords of the Boards, no matter how many times the owners’ deputy commissioner Bill Daly suggests it is so.

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