“I'm really optimistic that we're going to get this settled. They’ve had some good talks there, and it looks like it’s moving in the right direction. I’m really optimistic and hopeful that we’re going to play hockey this season.”

-- Tuukka Rask at 6:04 p.m. on Thursday.

Ah, so close. 

Not long after Rask spoke of the optimism that had filled the hockey world this week, it all went bad, as it tends to. 

See, when things started looking up for the NHL and NHLPA on Tuesday, there was a part of the average hockey fan that thought that wanted so badly to believe Steve Burton had scooped TSN and the rest of North America and that a new CBA to save the season would be agreed upon. There was probably an even bigger part that was wondering how the positivity would lead to more head-shaking and declarations of the sides being “deeply disappointed” in one another. 

Unfortunately for hockey fans and plenty of folks who have been out of work the last few months, team Burton lost as team “deeply disappointed” showed it could withstand even the most optimistic of times. What was once on the table is now off the table, and what once looked like the end of the lockout was just another day in season that hasn’t been. 

Things kicked off on a positive note this week when select players and owners met without commissioner Gary Bettman and NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr in the room. Perhaps just as important as the lack of Bettman and Fehr was the fact that owners who clearly wanted the lockout over in Ron Burkle (Penguins), Mark Chipman (Jets), Jeff Vinik (Lightning) and Murray Edwards (Flames) got more of a say as they joined B’s owner Jeremy Jacobs and Larry Tenenbaum (Maple Leafs) on the owners’ side of the table. 

Those talks cultivated an encouraging vibe, as the players and owners met for nearly 10 hours on Tuesday before returning for another go of it on Wednesday. It was then that the league tabled an offer that included significant movement on its end, most notably bumping its “make whole” provision (money that goes to the players to offset what they’d lose as their piece of the hockey-related revenue pie is decreased) from $211 million to $300 million, which split the difference between the league's previous offer and the $393 million the players had been requesting. 

Furthermore, the league agreed to stick to the current unrestricted free agency and arbitration protocol, though owners wanted a five-year term limit on contracts for free agents and seven-year limits for teams re-signing their own players. The length of the proposed CBA was for 10 years with an opt-out after eight (technical jargon for “the league’s next lockout would be scheduled for either 2020 or 2022”).  

The NHLPA did not put that offer to a vote, though Fehr said that the union was on board with the league’s make-whole offer. The players countered with a proposal on Thursday that would have been for eight years (opt-out after six) with an eight-year term limit on contracts, though they also wanted the option to add years during the contract (for example, a player three years into an eight-year deal could negotiate with his team to add three more years so that they would then have eight more years as opposed to five). The owners rejected it in spectacular fashion.

Said Bettman after talks broke off: “Anything that we put on the table this week is off the table.”

That’s not good, because the owners actually had put quite a bit on the table. They probably had reason to believe that what they’d offered had a fighting chance, but when the players didn’t take their offer from Wednesday, that’s when things started to look grim. 

"The owners were besides themselves, some of them I had never seen that emotional,” Bettman said. “They said, '[We] don't know what happened, but this process is over. Clearly the union doesn't want to make a deal,' and this was in particular from the four new entrants [Burkle, Chipman, Vinik, Edwards] to the process.”

The commissioner lamented (surprisingly rightfully so) that the owners did make concessions and that they have seemingly made offers that reflect what the players have said is most important to them. Regardless of where your allegiances are in this lockout, that’s a fair critique of Donald Fehr. He’s been the hardest guy to read throughout this process, and his presence clearly was felt this week, even if he wasn’t in the room to begin it. 

“Earlier in the negations, we were told that the ‘make whole’ was the key element. 'Fix the make-whole, we'll have a deal.' Well, we addressed the make-whole, and we didn't have a deal,” Bettman said. “Then it was player contracting, and we made some dramatic moves in player contracting and that turned out not to be the key in the negotiation, so now it was the pension.”

Given how far the owners had moved on the “make whole,” they tried a different approach with Wednesday’s offer by saying they’d give up certain areas if it meant addressing the three things most important to the league: length of CBA, length of contracts and for there to be no compliance buyouts or escrow caps. As Bettman put it, the owners expected to get one of two things on Thursday: A "yes" or a "no." When they got a counterproposal that “missed the mark” on all three sticking points, according to deputy commissioner Bill Daly, that was it. 

So now it’s Dec. 7, eight days from the not-yet-canceled games, and though there seems to be common ground found in the dollars and cents department for the most part, there’s frustration and no further negotiations currently scheduled. 

While it may be a couple months before the sides would be looking at completely losing the season, it’s clear that they heard the clock ticking this week when they made the strides they did. Shawn Thornton hopes that everyone realizes that as the lockout eats away at the season, things are only moving closer toward now-or-never territory.

“I hope so, and I hope that it's the now and not the never,” he said. “Obviously every day that goes by ticks away at the clock. We lose paychecks every day and they lose revenue from games played every day. I hope the sense of urgency is finally starting to kick in on both sides.”

It seemed that sense of urgency had kicked in, and so had a sense of optimism. Then the reality of the NHL kicked in. What comes next is anyone’s guess.