from Pierre LeBrun of ESPN,

There were some that feared a potential meltdown of talks Thursday depending on how the league responded to revenue sharing and Make Whole provision offers the NHLPA tabled the night before.

And within those offers on Wednesday night was a strong message from the NHLPA that it felt going from 57 percent to 50 percent of revenues was a big enough concession and it didn’t feel it was right for the players to have to give back a whole lot more in other areas.

Three or four weeks ago, that might have been enough for the league to stomp out in a fury, once again deadening any potential for progress.

Instead, the league responded with its answer Thursday on both revenue sharing and Make Whole -- honoring existing player contracts. While a source says the NHLPA wasn’t impressed by it either, both sides didn’t blow out of the room and hammer each other on the head through the media.

Instead, both NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr said next to nothing in their short media scrums. Only to say the most important words of all at this point: they will meet again tomorrow.

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