from Kevin Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe,

So if the players give Bettman more this time, what more does the union hand over when this deal expires in three, five, or eight years?

Truth is, avarice never has a fix. What the current stalemate tells us is that NHL owners simply want to cull out something close to 50 percent of the overall take, more closely mirroring what NFL and NBA owners won in their most recent collective rock fights with players.

Let us not forget, it was the salary-cap cost certainty of the NFL and NBA that led hockey owners to demand one last time.

As one team official noted to me last week, “Wait, didn’t we get what we said we needed from the players last time? At some point, maybe we’ve got to stop going that route, trying something else.’’

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