league and players ratified a 24-team expanded playoff, set to begin Aug. 1, and a four-year extension of the collective bargaining agreement. “It was a recognition by both sides that we were being confronted with an incredibly difficult, a novel, unprecedented situation.
I believed we would get to this point because it was the right thing to do for the game and for everybody involved in the game.”Fehr, the NHL Players’ Association executive director, not only agreed with Bettman, but went out of his way to credit the owners for the approach.“I was persuaded well before the end of March that not only was this different, but it was being approached in a fundamentally different way.