NHL talks end; no sign they’ll restart in time to save season

NEW YORK — The NHL and the players’ association broke off talks Thursday as the clock ticked down to a weekend deadline for saving what little is left of the season.

“It was a pointless meeting,” NHL chief legal officer Bill Daly said after the four-hour session.

“We’re not going to pick up the phone this weekend,” union senior director Ted Saskin said. “We’re done.”

It was the second straight day of meetings in Toronto aimed at ending the lockout, but the first full session since commissioner Gary Bettman told the union Wednesday that a deal would need to be ready by the weekend to save the season.

If the deadline was set to pressure the players’ association to give in to the league’s salary-cap demand, it hasn’t worked so far.

Daly said the union brought nothing new to Thursday’s meeting.

“Quite frankly, I don’t know why they asked us to stay overnight,” Daly said. “I don’t know what their agenda was. I just know there was no progress.”

During the meeting at the league’s office in Canada, the sides spent 2 1/2 hours huddling separately.

No new meetings were scheduled, and Daly and Bettman immediately returned to New York to prepare for a normal work day today.

That won’t be easy because every indication is that it will be the last business day before the NHL becomes the first major North American sports league to lose an entire season to a labor dispute.

Daly said the league had gone as far at it could, and reiterated that the players’ association would not give in to the league’s demand of a link between revenues and player costs.