Parts of both sides of the NHL lockout conflict are meeting tomorrow in New York without Donald Fehr or Gary Bettman.
The announced owners in attendance: Jeff Vinik of the Tampa Bay Lightning, Ron Burkle of the Pittsburgh Penguins, Mark Chipman of the Winnipeg Jets, Murray Edwards of the Calgary Flames, Jeremy Jacobs of the Boston Bruins, Larry Tanenbaum of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Fehr said some of the owners listed had yet to attend any previous meetings and that their presence would help continue discussion and hopefully make more headway.
“We hope that this meeting will be constructive and lead to a dialogue that will help us find a way to reach an agreement.”
Just as a discussion topic:
What do you hope tomorrow will accomplish?
With both top dogs not even in the building what do you think will actually get accomplished tomorrow, if anything at all?
Admirals Roundtable 
The second lines can’t do any worse than the number one lines; unless a gunfight breaks out!
I would be happy if Bettman and Fehr went away forever.
I get the sense that this tactic is to see if there are some cracks in either side. See if someone says something they aren’t supposed to, and then be the first to the media to tell everyone about it. I’m not expecting anything groundbreaking. But with lower expectations, I’m open to being pleasantly surprised!
Any meeting without Bettman and Fehr is a good thing. I would think the week of December 16th would be some sort of drop-dead timeline as far as the NHL playing a legit amount of games to have a somewhat real season.
Nor sure if you guys have been seeing that viral report from WBZ about the end of the lockout coming soon. No credibility to it. Many are blowing it off as just a reporter trying to generate some buzz.