Raw Charge, a Tampa Bay Lightning community

All some of us want as a holiday present is to be given our team back; for Tampa Bay hockey fans - a few alternative "gifts" that are the sport of hockey.

However loyal you are to the Tampa Bay Lightning, the NHL's legal filings could lead to the cancelling of every contract of every player in the league.

They may all seem like bad guys, and it may seem like we're ignoring certain bad guys in the 2012 lockout too. Our question this week is who is the biggest villain of the 2012 NHL lockout?

They are close, they are far apart. The only thing left for NHL clubs to do is be ready - for a resolution or for a continued contemptuous affair.

Nine months after the 2011-12 NHL season concluded in Winnipeg for the Tampa Bay Lightning, the franchise resumes its quest for Lord Stanley's Cup in its 2013 season opener against Washington.

While the situation isn't exactly "no news", it's close. Perhaps you can have a shred of hope that a resolution is forthcoming. At least, for the moment.

Representatives of the NHL and NHLPA continue talking late into the night on Saturday.

Months of posturing and rhetoric and hard-line stances have given away to what should have been a starting point in labor negotiation talks between the NHL and NHLPA. So what changed that led to the league dropping it's hardline stance?

Between a New York Post report and an anonymous owner's suggestion the league is losing money, the notion NHL owners are out to simply dominate labor and the NHL Players Association rings true once again.

No urgency is on display with the looming expiration of the NHL's collective bargaining agreement with the Players Association.