from Ken Campbell of The Hockey News,

It could be interesting, very interesting, to compare what the NHL and the NHL Players’ Association are saying 20 months from now to the tone both sides have taken at the 2019 All-Star Game. With less than eight months to go before either side can reopen the collective bargaining agreement and trigger it to expire in September 2020, there is a palpable feeling on both sides of the table that a new CBA can be negotiated without a labor disruption for the first time in more than 30 years.

The last time the two sides struck a new agreement without some sort of imbroglio was 1988. But, to be fair, they managed to extend an agreement that was supposed to end in 1998 for another six seasons, which preserved labor peace prior to the Mother of All Lockouts™ in 2004-05. When NHL commissioner Gary Bettman held his state-of-the-union news conference during the all-star festivities, he seemed buoyant about the possibility of getting a deal done without interruption. And Mathieu Schneider, who was there representing the NHLPA, was in lockstep with the commissioner. The two sides managed to come to an agreement on puck- and player-tracking technology that will come into effect next season. That’s a nice start, but it doesn’t do anything to address escrow payments or the speculation that the league might shoot for more than 50 percent of revenues.

Not long after announcing the league is, “once again on pace to earn record league revenues,” Bettman essentially said there is little reason why the two sides should not be able to come together.

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