Dan Cleary’s comments spot on in regards to where the lockout is headed

Good luck to anyone trying to find a small group of NHL players on or off the record who really believe this is going to be a short lockout as in just weeks or a month.

According to a number of players and league insiders, the reality is that the lockout is going to last at least a couple months, possibly even the entire season as neither side knows how to get the ball rolling.

While there’s no chance that the owners will come off their stance, for progress to be made it’s going to come down to the players caving but issue here is that the players are extremely united and comments from Red Wings winger Dan Cleary to the Detroit Free Press today are spot on in regards to where the lockout stands.

“I think people don’t think it can go a year,” Cleary told Detroit Free Press. “As players, we think it can. Maybe longer.” I think the league is waiting for us to make the move, and we’re waiting for them to move. So someone has to move. And I don’t see it coming from our end. We’ve given them a couple of good options that they can work with, and they, obviously, feel it’s not good enough. “We’re at a stalemate, I guess you can say. We’re stuck in the middle right now. It’s not going to start on time, ” also told the Free Press when asked if it’s possible that the regular season will start on time. “No way, ” Cleary added.

Steve Fehr and Bill Daly met today regarding the final hockey related revenue numbers for 2011-2012, a meeting the two sides always make at this time of the year. According to Chris Johnston of the Canadian Press, Steve Fehr told reporters that there were no CBA talks today between the two sides and Bill Daly said today that the league is waiting for the players to come forward with a new proposal for talks to resume.