The 2012-13 NHL season has been delayed by a dispute about the expired collective bargaining agreement between owners and players.
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and National Hockey League Players Association Executive Director Donald Fehr announced Sunday morning that a framework was in place for a new collective bargaining agreement.
"We still have a lot of work to do," Bettman said in a statement, "but it's good to be at this point."
Any deal will require language clarification, legal fine-tuning and ratification from both sides, although the parties said a verbal agreement has been reached on the major points.
Nearly half of the scheduled 80-game regular season already has been canceled due to the dispute.
After almost four months of the lockout, the league is expected to play a 50-game schedule starting Jan. 19 if this deal were approved.
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