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    ESPN Senior Writer
    • Covers hockey for ESPN.com
    • 10 years at Toronto Sun, Windsor Star and National Post
    • Wrote best-selling true crime book “Deadly Innocence”
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    ESPN Senior Writer
    • Covers the NHL for ESPN.com and TSN in Canada
    • Six years on the “Hockey Night In Canada” Hotstove panel
    • 13 years at The Canadian Press national news agency

Commissioner Gary Bettman reiterated on Tuesday that he doesn’t think the NHL players will be taking part in the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea. But what’s really going on here? Will the players go or is this just another bargaining tactic by all sides involved? ESPN writers Scott Burnside and Pierre LeBrun weigh in.

Burnside: Every time I hear Gary Bettman say how much the owners hate the Olympics and how no one should expect the NHL and its players to be in South Korea for the 2018 Olympics, I am more convinced that it’s only a matter of time until we get confirmation the NHL and its players will be back for the sixth straight Olympic hockey tournament. Why? Simple. Bettman can’t afford not to go, no matter how much the Olympic tournament disrupts the NHL schedule. He can’t afford to have the world’s eyes on a bunch of collegiate players and long-in-the-tooth former NHLers in Pyeongchang while the NHLers are toiling away back in North America. And, oh yeah, Bettman has the no small issue of having potential defectors to the Olympics, such as Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin, who has already said he’s going to play for Russia, with the blessing of owner Ted Leonsis. How’s that going to play out when Nicklas Backstrom wants to play again for Team Sweden? Or Braden Holtby wants a shot at helping Canada win a third straight Olympic gold? Or Sidney Crosby, the two-time Canadian captain, says he wants to go too? Will Pittsburgh Penguins owner Mario Lemieux, a gold medal winner in 2002, stand in the way of the best player in the world and the most important player on his team? Hard to imagine. Just as it’s hard to imagine that Bettman doesn’t already know in his heart of hearts the NHL will be back at the Olympics next winter and is just trying to figure out the best way to save face while confirming the inevitable.

LeBrun: Let’s remember how we got to this ridiculous Olympic stalemate. It began more than a year ago with IOC president Thomas Bach saying his governing body was no longer covering costs for the NHL players, as it had at past Olympics. Thank you, Mr. Bach, for poking the bear. Now some NHL owners care about an issue they really didn’t think that much about previously — it gave the NHL an opportunity to make this an issue. This is the same Bach who referred to his first presence in meeting with the NHL early last month as a “courtesy” visit. Gee, don’t inconvenience yourself while people figure out whether or not the best players in the world should be playing in your Olympics hockey tournament. The NHL might be the boogeyman in this process for not seeing the bigger picture in terms of what having the best players in the world at the Olympics means for the health and growth of the sport, but it’s Bach who threw down the gloves first and I still don’t understand what his endgame was by doing so. I agree, if this were truly over, Bettman would have said so by now. Instead, when he said again Tuesday that we can assume the NHL isn’t going, what he’s saying is that the NHL isn’t going unless of course the National Hockey League Players’ Association or the IOC throw the NHL a bone. As I speculated last week, if the players were willing to give assurances they wouldn’t opt out of the CBA in 2020 and let it run its course to its final expiry in 2022, that might be enough to get the green light from the owners. Really, who doesn’t want labor peace until 2022 (says the reporter who has covered too many lockouts)? But I don’t blame the players for saying, “Why do we have to give up anything to do what’s right for the game?”

Burnside: OK, so the IOC acted like boors. Are you surprised? Ha. The IOC answers to no one. The bottom line is that the league owes the hockey world an answer. They owe it to USA Hockey, so it can turn its attention to forming a roster of collegiate and overseas NHLers if the NHL isn’t going. The NHL owes it likewise to Hockey Canada and all of the other hockey federations — groups that, by the way, have according to IIHF head Rene Fasel helped come up with the money the league insisted was crucial to the NHL returning to the Olympics. They owe it to the fans, so we can stop this ridiculous debate as the league heads into its most important part of the season, with the playoffs less than three weeks away. It’s simple, really. Bettman could stop threatening and make the call next week. He could then announce where the All-Star Game will be held (the NHL doesn’t do All-Star Games during Olympic years) and start pumping up the other events that he hopes will make people forget that they’re walking away from the world’s biggest hockey stage. End the charade. That’s not going to happen, is it?

LeBrun: What’s going to happen is that either Fasel, who really has as much if not more at stake than anyone in all this — after all, the Olympic hockey event is a IIHF-sanctioned and run tournament — or NHLPA head Donald Fehr will try to force another Olympic meeting. The Olympics and international hockey mean a ton to Fehr. There will definitely be another sitdown of the parties before this is all said and done. An NHL team executive texted me this morning saying that despite everything that’s transpired, he still believes an Olympic deal will get done. I would think the Olympics broadcaster, NBC, is already in the NHL’s ear to make sure it gets done. But no one should assume some NHL owners don’t hate the idea. Because they do. More than ever, I believe. That’s a dynamic that’s become bigger than before.

Do I think it gets resolved in the end? Yes, I do.