ANALYSIS : Attention, Mr. Bettman: Someone Has to Give

Despite the latest proclamation of gloom and doom at the NHL talks, there will be a hockey season.

Like students who have two months to complete a term paper but do nothing until the day before it’s due, owners and players postured and dawdled until they finally felt a sense of urgency. They have about three weeks left to save the season. It’s now a matter of who blinks first.

There’s still reason to believe they can see eye to eye. Players will realize they’re better off with a tax on salaries than with no salaries. Owners will realize it’s better to get revenue from 20 or 25 home games than to have no games at all.

Commissioner Gary Bettman has said that he wouldn’t want to play fewer than 50 games, not that he wouldn’t authorize a schedule of 40 or 44 games.

Calling off the season would set the NHL back immeasurably, especially in regions where hockey isn’t entrenched. Advertisers and sponsors would flee to the newest trendy sport. Revenues would suffer. Can union chief Bob Goodenow refuse to make a deal knowing that a canceled season might depress players’ future earnings more than the salary controls he accepts from the league?

And can Bettman, who has already extracted a host of concessions from players, demand they give more?

Bettman was hired to overhaul the NHL’s economic structure and halt the escalation of salaries. He has found new revenue sources (Fox TV and Nike) to help owners offset payroll costs. He prevailed on the rookie salary cap, essentially getting players to clean up after owners who threw money at rookies such as Alexandre Daigle and Brett Lindros and then cried that their wallets were emptying too fast.

His claim Tuesday that the sides were “too far apart on substance” was a scare tactic. He’s still trying to frighten players into caving in, which he accomplished with the rookie cap and the franchise player designation that limits free agency for veterans. He can’t be blamed for trying again, but even he knows he has pushed as far as he can.

They are, from all accounts, too close on the major issues not to make a deal. After winning so many points, it’s Bettman’s turn to give in.

They are inches away from agreeing on terms for unrestricted free agency. The NHL dropped the franchise player demand but raised the age for eligibility to 31 for the first two years of the agreement and 30 for the next three years. That can easily be bridged.

In the last two weeks, they also closed in on the salary limit for first-round draft picks, which will be about $1 million. The NHL wants to cap bonuses and players want no restrictions, but that can also be worked out.

Their biggest difference is the union’s request that salary arbitration be binding, while the NHL wants non-binding arbitration. But even the most hawkish of players acknowledge a compromise is possible, perhaps by granting unrestricted free agency to players if clubs reject arbitrators’ decisions.

That leaves the payroll tax, which has never had universal support among club executives.

If the tax alone is blocking a deal, NHL governors, who will meet Monday in New York, are likely to urge Bettman to drop it or reduce it again. They will probably reduce it, formulating a final proposal and setting a deadline of about Dec. 20 for the union to accept it or face the cancellation of the season. General managers caucused by phone Wednesday, as did players. Bettman and Goodenow did not speak, and they are not scheduled to talk before Monday’s NHL gathering.

All that’s clear now is that the All-Star game, scheduled on Jan. 21 at San Jose, will be wiped out. But the season can be salvaged.

Players will have to live with a payroll tax, which they’ve already indicated they can do. Their Oct. 10 proposal included a tax ranging from 1% to 7% on the league’s top 16 revenue-earning clubs. What made it acceptable then and philosophically unacceptable Tuesday? The players are posturing.

Owners can make the tax a bit more palatable. After getting many key, money-saving concessions from players, it’s time for the NHL to make one minor-to-moderate compromise that will enable both sides to save face.

Owners are willing to blunt the impact of the tax by crediting gate tax payments toward the payroll tax fee. They also devised a grandfather clause to ease the hit on clubs whose payrolls already exceed the $18-million limit. (That limit would rise to $19 million in the second year of the agreement and $20 million the third year).

The next move is to reduce the peak tax rate from 25% to 20% and lower the age for unrestricted free agency to 29 or 30. Players would buy that, knowing that if they fail to strike a deal, they would lose more than a season: They would lose part of their future.