THIS just in. Mark Felt announces that he is actually the man known as Slap Shots. And is immediately denounced by Gary Bettman, Jeremy Jacobs, TSN and Pat Buchanan for having committed acts of sedition against the NHL.

Those people who have made a living demonizing Bob Goodenow this past year miss the critical point. And that is that the NHL never had the slightest interest in playing even a portion of the 2004-05 season absent total capitulation from the union on every point in the CBA – including, and especially on, the qualifying-offer and salary-arbitration components that might be even more critical to the majority of the rank-and-file than the eventual payroll upper limit established under a linked hard cap.

Not until now, with the league’s cooler heads finally prevailing upon the radical hardliners, has the NHL moved off its non-negotiable position that would have eviscerated player protections in these essential systemic categories. Not until now has the league committed to the PA’s version of qualifiers and salary arb.

Goodenow may not be a hero here. He may not keep his job once this settled; might choose not to, in fact. But before demonizing him and the union, an understanding the context of the landscape under which he and the PA operated last year might be valuable.

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Obviously players under contract who have apparently lost last season’s pay are mighty disturbed that they’ll still have to take the 24 percent rollback the union originally offered in order to avoid a cap, but will be included anyway in the new CBA.

But those players not under contract stand to benefit from the rollback, with approximately $158.5M in previously committed monies (that the projection supplied by the PA in December) now freed to be spent within the hard-cap system.

Yes, some players will lose. Significantly. But others stand to gain. Meaningfully.

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The issue of whether to count the contracts of players on Injured Reserve against the hard cap somehow continues to be a subject of debate, not only between the parties but among the NHL negotiators, themselves.

Understand this. Counting IR contracts against the cap doesn’t penalize players, it penalizes the fans, those people the lockout was originally supposed to be about. Remember?

With IR contracts counted under the cap, the Flames could never have traded for Mikka Kiprusoff when Roman Turek went down early in 2003-04 – not only because Calgary might not have had room under the cap (who knows?) but because the Sharks themselves would have needed insurance against a potential rash of goaltending injuries.

What, Ranger fans investing thousands of dollars in season tickets would simply have been out of luck when Mike Richter suffered a season-ending concussion in early November of 2002?

This isn’t the NFL, where fans pay for eight regular-season games, enjoy tailgating as much as the actual football, and stop coming when it gets cold, anyway.

It’s going to be difficult enough to make trades under a hard cap system. Counting IR contracts under the cap will make it impossible.

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If the Devils are unable to keep Scott Niedermayer, New Jersey appears the quite logical landing spot for Brian Leetch, whom, you’ll recall, Lou Lamoriello aggressively sought when the free-agent defenseman first went on the open market two summers ago before opting to remain on Broadway.

With the NHL conducting a series of experimental rules scrimmages this week in Toronto, the hope is that the league doesn’t gimmick up the game to the point where it becomes unrecognizable to the hard-core base. There is, however, no doubt the NHL intends to provide an attack- and offense-friendly re-launch environment to better spotlight its talent.

While Tom Renney is, of course, teaching the Rangers to play the trap.

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News break: John Ziegler returns from Europe to condemn Slap Shots as a traitor.