Esche trying to make a save

By ED MORAN

morane@phillynews.com

WHEN ROBERT ESCHE woke up last Thursday morning, he was facing the prospect that in just 4 days he would have to start thinking about what to do with his career.

After 5 months of stalemated negotiations between the NHL owners and the players association, the chances that a new collective bargaining agreement could be reached before the league's newly stated deadline of last weekend were dim, and fading fast.

There had to be a middle ground, and the Flyers goalie wanted to see if there were any others who felt the same.

So he organized a players' meeting for that afternoon in Philadelphia.

"I was just doing my job as a player representative," Esche said in an interview with the Daily News last night.

"I wasn't trying to make a proposal, I wasn't trying to go behind anyone's back. I just wanted to see what everyone was thinking. I was talking with [Jeremy Roenick], I was talking with [Mark Recchi] and I was hearing a lot of different stuff from a lot of different people.

"I was going to be in town, so I said, 'Let's get together and see what everybody has to say.' ''

Apparently, a lot. What followed was an upswelling of emotion that spread across the league from player to player and team to team and built until there was a belief that a majority of players would accept the league's demand of a salary cap if the conditions were right.

It was a huge change in philosophy, a bridge over the chasm that has separated the sides since September. The result was a restart of negotiations, thought long dead, by Sunday afternoon and an exchange of proposals that changed the dimensions of the negotiations.

It was a good effort, and where it will end remains an unknown. Late last night, on the 153rd day of the lockout, the two sides exchanged proposals again; they have until 1 p.m. today to cut a deal before this season is canceled. If it works and the season is saved, it should be known that the endgame began in Philadelphia.

After the Flyers' meeting, Esche said he called Jarome Iginla in Calgary, Chris Pronger in St. Louis, Craig Conroy in Los Angeles, Shane Doan in Phoenix. They called players, and Roenick called players, and those players called players.

And the word got around that a cap not tied directly to league revenues would be acceptable if it meant saving the season. Then Esche and some of the others started calling union chief Bob Goodenow while Roenick and Iginla and Pronger and the others kept talking to players.

Esche stayed busy, calling the union repeatedly. All weekend. Even as late as Sunday afternoon, when word had been issued that another meeting had failed, this one with a state mediator, Esche did not quit.

"One of the reasons they are meeting at all is because of all the pressure this kid brought on the whole league," said a league source who wanted to remain unnamed.

As of late last night, the union was in possession of a letter from NHL commissioner Gary Bettman that contained what he called his final offer - a 6-year deal with a hard cap of $42 million, not tied to revenues, that increases to $44.7 per team with the addition of player benefits.

That is an increase from the $40 million ceiling the union rejected early yesterday morning, but still below the $52 million the union sought, a proposal that continues to include a luxury-tax component, changes in arbitration rules, and a 24 percent rollback of all existing contracts.

While most players contacted last night believed the season was dead, some sources still felt the NHL's final offer was not yet a final offer.

In his letter to Goodenow, Bettman was all hard line:

"This offer is not an invitation to begin negotiations - it's too late for that," Bettman wrote to Goodenow. "This is our last effort to make a deal that's fair to the players and one that the clubs [hopefully] can afford. We have no more flexibility and there is no time for further negotiation.

"If this offer is acceptable, please let me know by 11:00 a.m. tomorrow, in advance of my scheduled press conference. Hopefully, the press conference can be avoided."

Hours later, the union responded to Bettman in a letter from Goodenow that countered with a $49 million cap and adjustments to the finer details.

"We wish that the NHL had offered a 'non-linkage' proposal before yesterday so that negotiations in that arena could have commenced sooner. However, we recognize that they did not and we agree that time is short," Goodenow wrote.

Bettman responded to the union offer of the $49 million cap by writing back, "We cannot afford your proposal.''

Goodenow disputed Bettman's claim in a letter, taking a hard-line stance and replying, "You will receive nothing further from us."

And that is where the balance of the negotiations hangs.

"Obviously, with this proposal, I'd like to think the numbers could be different. But they are what they are and it's up to the union and the NHL to crunch the numbers some more," Esche said.

If it doesn't work out, it will not be from a lack of effort or courage from Esche, Roenick, Recchi, Doan, Iginla, Pronger, Conroy and the players who helped bring pressure to the table.

Esche said he did not feel he had done anything that should either draw praise or criticism.

"The rumbling had already started before the [players'] meeting, and we were hearing that a lot of people would accept a cap not linked to revenue, me included," Esche said.

"I got an overwhelming number of guys in Philadelphia to support it, and I called [the other players]. We all just talked. That's what player reps do; we talked and found out that there was an overwhelming opinion.

"I gathered a bunch of information and gave it to the union. All we did was give them the information and said, 'You do what you want, but we all feel this way and you do work for us.'

"None of us came up with numbers, we weren't conducting negotiations, none of us did that; we talked and started calling around to the other guys. I was scared to death to say this and I thought they would bite my head off and now I'm finding that there are other guys that support it."

One player who has not been afraid of the criticism and has been vocal all along is Roenick. Even before the meeting in Philadelphia, he said publicly the players would consider a hard cap without linkage and said they deserved a chance to vote on any proposal.

"I got killed for that," Roenick said last night. "But I felt very strongly and I voiced my opinion. I was doing what I felt I could do as a person to help save the league.

"I was the one that came out on TV and made a suggestion that there could be a cap that could work for both sides. I'm sure that there are guys in the [union] that feel I have given up the ship when all I did was tried to prevent what could be the demise of the league.

"I don't think I'm wrong on this. I didn't negotiate anything. I helped guys that had opinions to state those opinions."

Like Roenick, Esche knows there are players who will never agree with what he and the other have done. Even in the Thursday meeting, not everyone was in agreement.

"I was there but I left after about an hour and 15 minutes because I was kind of sour," said the Flyers' Keith Primeau. "We were there trying to get a consensus, an idea of what guys could live with, and it looked like we were trying to come up with our own collective bargaining agreement. I said, 'Look, I support the union, I don't like this and I'm out of here.'

"I talked to [players] later and they said it was left non-committal, but I'm hearing lots of different things.''

Last night, Primeau said if the effort helps save the season, it will have been worth it.

"How can I be angered at that?" he said. "I'm not sure where I stand because I was involved in [1994] and we let the union handle everything.

"But it moved a lot slower this time and it created a lot of angst and spurned small pockets of discontent. But I also know that the talks went on and it spurned encouragement because both sides were willing to accept more than what we thought."