NHL Lockout: CBA Talks Enter Pivotal Week in Final Attempt to Save Full Season

The NHL lockout has entered a critical stage with just a few days left to save a full season, but if there's no new collective bargaining agreement by Thursday's deadline, will we see hockey at any point this winter?

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Spoke with a team exec who says there's either a labor deal this week or there's no season. Not sure it's that clear-cut but who knows...

— Pierre LeBrun (@Real_ESPNLeBrun) October 21, 2012"

As ESPN's Pierre LeBrun points out, it's not certain if the entire season is going to be decided by the October 25 deadline, but one thing likely to happen if there's no deal this week is that these negotiations could go downhill rather quickly.

Expect to see significant cancellations if Thursday's deadline passes without a new CBA, which would prevent an 82-game season from happening because the league, and rightly so, doesn't want the 2013 Stanley Cup Final to possibly go into July.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has tried to pressure the players by giving them a November 2 start date to play a full 82-game schedule, and this is significant because if there's a full season, then the players don't lose any salary because all the games are played.

If there is no deal by Thursday, the players will soon miss their second paycheck of the season. Once these players start missing four or even five paychecks, the pressure for them to make a deal is going to rise dramatically. They only get 13 checks in a season.

If the players lose four or five paychecks, they will have lost a lot of the money that they have been trying to preserve during these labor negotiations, so it makes sense for them to strike a deal by Thursday so they play an 82-game season, which would result in them earning their full salary for 2012-13.

As much as the players need a deal this week, the league also needs to reach an agreement as soon as possible. The NHL has sponsors who want the season to start soon, NBC Sports wants to begin broadcasting games and the pressure to stay relevant in the North American sports scene is also a factor.

The NFL season will soon enter its second half with playoff races heating up, the college football season will soon enter a very exciting month of November and the NBA preseason is almost over with the regular season set to commence very soon (in many NHL cities, too).

Both sides have plenty of incentive to get a CBA done by Thursday. Four days doesn't seem like a ton of time, but if the players and owners really want to play 82 games, like they have said for weeks, then they have all the time needed to finalize an agreement and open up training camps in the near future.

There have been many important dates throughout the past few months, but none have been bigger than the looming October 25 deadline that could easily decide the fate of the 2012-13 season.

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Nicholas Goss is an NHL Lead Writer at Bleacher Report. He was also the organization's on-site reporter for the 2011 Stanley Cup Final in Boston. Follow him on Twitter.