After failing to make any progress toward a new collective bargaining agreement, the NHL owners and players agreed on one point: A lockout seems inevitable.

The players' association made its first proposal to the owners in nearly a year Thursday, but it only seemed to seal the fate that a lockout will be imposed Wednesday when the current deal expires.

Ted Saskin, the NHLPA's senior director, said commissioner Gary Bettman concluded the meeting Thursday by saying, "We weren't even talking the same language."

The NHLPA presented a modified plan during the negotiating session Thursday that it first floated last summer and formally offered on Oct. 1, 2003.

It included a luxury-tax system, a change in the entry-level structure, a plan for revenue sharing, and a 5-percent rollback on current player contracts.

And it all fell on deaf ears.

"We spent four hours, and after waiting 15 months, not only didn't we get a proposal that was not really different, but it was a step backward," said Bill Daly, the NHL's chief legal officer.

A step that can't be afforded if the NHL season is going to start on time. The current deal expires Sept. 15, and no new talks were scheduled.

The point of contention between the sides seems simple. The players claim that Bettman will not agree to a deal that doesn't include a salary cap.

The players are steadfast that they will discuss any structure other than a salary cap to cut the percentage of revenues that are paid out in salaries.

"At some point the owners need to understand the players will never accept a salary cap or any system arbitrarily linking payroll to league revenues," said Vancouver center Trevor Linden, the president of the players' executive committee. "Our proposal was the best chance we saw to save the hockey season."

Saskin said the contract rollbacks will create $100 million in savings. The luxury tax framework would target the spending of specific teams, and the proposed revenue-sharing system - that differed from the players' association initial proposal - was more closely aligned to recent NHL offers, the union said.

Players said the offered changes to the entry level system would generate $60 million in savings to clubs. But Daly countered that the proposal was merely "window dressing" and didn't address problems facing all 30 teams.

Saskin said owners want the lockout because that is the only way they have a chance of getting a salary cap.

It is likely that the season officially will be put in peril next week when the NHL Board of Governors meet in New York.

A lockout could prove worse than the one that lasted 103 days and cut the 1994-95 season nearly in half. Owners have been preparing for that possibility the last several years and have built a $300 million war chest.

"I'm scratching my head as to where to go from here," Daly said.