NHL, players union to meet again Wednesday

NHL owners and union representatives of locked-out players will meet again Wednesday after a 90-minute bargaining session Monday, a league official says. Deputy NHL Commissioner Bill Daly told NHL.com Tuesday the two sides "will be meeting [Wednesday] morning. I don't know about the substance and I have no expectations." A spokesperson for the NHL Players Association said the union was holding internal meetings Tuesday. The Monday session was the first in more than a week following a acrimonious break-off. Daly said owners asked the NHLPA to develop a proposal encompassing its positions on all of the core economic issues during the meeting. NHLPA Executive Director Donald Fehr said after Monday's session the union wanted to discuss one the key sticking points in the 2-month-old lockout -- an NHL demand to crack down on the "backloading" of long-term deals, which the league sees as evasions of the salary cap. But, Fehr said, the owners didn't want to address it as a stand-alone topic, but rather as part of a series of "core" economic issues that also include the players' overall share of the revenue pie, NHL.com reported.