GettyNow that the stupid lockout is over, the NHL can turn its attention to what the upcoming season will look like.

Expanded playoffs? Potentially. The NHL is desperate to both entice apathetic fans to come back to the game for a truncated season and to make up for the revenue shortfall. The playoff expansion works better for the four-division realignment, but four more teams getting playoff gates might be too sexy to pass up.

But how long will the regular season run before those Stanley Cup Playoffs?

According to Bob McKenzie of TSN and others, the target is a 50-game regular season. Please recall the number had been 48 games for some time, with the games getting underway on Jan. 19. With the NHL and NHLPA closing their deal well ahead of this Friday’s “deadline” for the season, the possibility is strong that a 50-game season happens.

GettyAfter a 16-hour marathon negotiating session, the NHL and the NHLPA agreed on the framework for a new Collective Bargaining Agreement, effectively ending the lockout that’s wiped out half the 2012-13 season.

So what does the new CBA look like?

It’s a large collection of printed paper bound together with some type of fastener, but that’s not important right now.

What is important: What the new CBA establishes as far as player contracts and other off-ice details.

• After it was nearly a deal-breaker for the players in the last few weeks, the salary cap for the 2013-14 season will be $64.3 million – the exact cap the NHL had in 2011-12. The NHL was asking for a $60 million cap; the NHLPA was asking for a $67 million cap for next season.

This is a win for the NHL: The cap number won’t mean teams must dismantle their rosters, but there will be some player movement to get teams under that new cap. Plus, the two compliance buyouts – a.k.a. amnesty buyouts – per team for next season will count against the players’ share of Hockey Related Revenue, per Chris Johnston. Get thee to Cap Geek!

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It took 16 hours of talks in New York on Saturday, with concessions from both sides. It took 113 days. A total of 625 regular-season games were sacrificed, or over half the 2012-13 season. It took months of bitter sniping, petty politics, false hope and broken hearts.

But at around 5 a.m. on Jan. 6, the word finally spread around the hockey world: The NHL and the NHLPA had reached a verbal agreement on a tentative framework for a new Collective Bargaining Agreement.

Drop the puck. The NHL will be finally back, with a 10-year CBA solidified between union chief Donald Fehr and Commissioner Gary Bettman. As Fehr said, via Sportsnet: "Any process like this is difficult; it can be long...we have the framework of a deal."

The NHL and NHLPA continued to inch towards an end to the lockout on Saturday in New York City, with mediator Scot Beckenbaugh meeting with the sides individually and then bringing them together for a negotiating session.

According to Tom Gulitti of the Bergen Record, there’s been one bit of progress:

“It sounds like players have agreed to 10-year CBA with mutual out after Year 8. Were previously looking for the out after Year 7.”

The two sides had previously agreed on a 10-year CBA term earlier in the week, but the NHLPA wanted an opt-out after seven years, meaning we could go through this labor hell three times in 14 years.

Other CBA notes as of 7 p.m. ET:

• The NHLPA’s players completed their vote to authorize Donald Fehr to file a disclaimer of interest with the NHL. The players had previously authorized the move, which would be the first step in dissolving the union in a nuclear option, but Fehr decided not to use the option earlier in the week.

It's a (gettin' down on) Friday edition of Marek vs. Wyshynski beginning at 2 p.m. ET/11 a.m. PT, and we're talking about the following and more:

Special Guest Star: Puck Daddy's Ryan Lambert joins us to gloat about the Americans' victory at World Juniors. Oh, and he will gloat. Plus it's GAME SHOW FRIDAY!

• DregerFace ends up biting Wysh.

• CBA talks update.

• Why aren't more owners into sports?

Question of the Day: What's the most useless thing you've learned from the lockout?

Tweet your answers with the hashtag #MvsW to @jeffmarek.

Click here for the Sportsnet live stream or click the play button above! Click here to download podcasts from the show each day. Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or Feedburner.

The "Mighty Ducks" films have given the world so much. Gordon Bombay. Charlie Conway. Goldberg the Goalie. Iceland as a hockey superpower. And, of course, that team in Anaheim.

But one of their greatest contributions: The Flying V, in which the skaters mimic the flying pattern of actual ducks, passing the puck around to confuse opponents. Witness its simple perfection:

Ah, were it only that easy in reality. Uploaded under the title “Biggest Hockey Player Fail Ever”, here’s a team that attempted to master the Flying V but failed to take into account something called “forechecking.”

Perhaps not the biggest fail ever; maybe if the opponents had scored. But a fail nonetheless. If only Adam Banks had been available…

Getty ImagesBuffalo Sabres owner Terry Pegula is Penn State. Like, literally. He’s the reason the Nittany Lions have a Div. I hockey program and a gorgeous arena. Apparently, he’s also the reason the Penn State football program still has a head coach.

According to David Jones of Penn Live, Bill O’Brien was courted heavily by NFL teams, but he’s coming back to Penn State for the 2013 season. Why? Thank you, Mr. Pegula:

O'Brien acknowledged that PSU donor Terry Pegula, financier of the new Penn State hockey arena, has been a major ally in his efforts. Pegula was the first person who contacted O'Brien in late 2011 when he was eventually interviewed for the job.

Though O'Brien was not specific about it, high-level PSU sources have told me that a $1.3 million donation is to be added to O'Brien's salary in the coming year that will bump his total compensation to $3.6 million and place him behind only Ohio State's Urban Meyer ($4.3M) and Iowa's Kirk Ferentz ($3.8M) as the third-highest-paid coach in the

151963218Well, here we go. The end game. The National Hockey League has established its deadlines – including a Jan. 19 start date to preserve a 48-game 2013 regular season – and now Commissioner Gary Bettman is reportedly ready to swing with the big hammer at the NHLPA.

Gary Lawless of the Winnipeg Free Press reported on Thursday night that a veteran member of the NHL’s Board of Governors told him Bettman is “prepared to cancel the season on Thursday if a deal has not been reached or appears to be imminent.”

From Lawless:

The league believes Fehr is unwilling to do a deal until after Bettman has cancelled the NHL season and the union leader is now slowing the process one last time to increase pressure on the commissioner, said the governor late Wednesday night. Such a gambit could be put to the test as early as next Thursday and the governor said it will come up empty for the players and finally the fans.

If the NHL and NHLPA cannot come to a settlement and sign a new collective bargaining agreement by Thursday or Friday of next week, Bettman will announce the cancellation of the 2012-13 season.

… Bettman will be willing to listen and talk with Fehr after he cancels the season but it will be on the basis of doing a deal for the 2013-14 season. Once the commissioner cancels this season, a 50-50 share will no longer be offered and the league will pursue a much revamped package because the owners will have no incentive to make the deal that was on the table.

(This isn’t meant to impugn Lawless’s reporting, but it should be noted that the Winnipeg Free Press was Bettman’s chosen outlet for one of the only interviews he’s given during the months-long lockout, back in November.)

The end of next week would be Jan. 11, which is the date Bettman has confirmed previously as essential for getting a deal done in order to begin training camps for a Jan. 19 launch. So it’s not exactly a shock to hear that next week could bring a cancellation if talks go off the rails – or if it appears Donald Fehr has no interest in cutting a deal.

Still, the BOG member is more direct than Bettman’s been: No substantial movement by next week, no season.

Do you buy it?