Why assume that a lack of an agreement amounts to evidence of a failure to negotiate, when all the available evidence suggests that it's nothing more than a failed negotiation? So why did it fail? Only the NHL and NHLPA could provide actual details, but if the NHL's position during CBA negotiations was as unreasonable as it's position and conduct during the past Olympic talks, perhaps that's the source of the failure and not that the NHLPA failed to take all reasonable steps to get the issue resolved during CBA negotiations? So unless you have some inside information that the NHLPA is at fault for the failed neogtiation, it's not much of an argument to fall back on the whole "wElL yOu ShOuLd HaVe PuT iT iN tHe CbA" argument when it takes more than one party to come to terms...