The NHL’s general managers met in Las Vegas this week, pouring over proposals designed to help make the game better. When the meetings concluded, the GM’s had recommended several changes that were expected to increase scoring.

The changes would stop goalies from handling the puck behind the goal line, would reduce the width of their pads by two inches, would return the goal lines to their old position – some two inches closer to the end boards, and would restore the “tag up” offside rule (allowing players to pull back onside without an automatic whistle.)

These changes are intended to make the game more appealing to fans, but the GMs missed one suggestion, an idea that would go a long way to keeping the game on North America’s pro sporting radar. The GMs should’ve suggested that next year, NHL teams actually play games.

If you’ve been paying attention, you may have come to realize that fans won’t be missing goal scoring next year, they’ll be missing the game itself.

The league and its players are digging in for a major work stoppage. At last weekend’s All-Star game, Jeremy Roenick suggested the event would be the last NHL All-Star game for a while. Of course, Roenick ended the week in the hospital with a shattered jaw.

There is no truth to the rumors that the shot came from Gary Bettman. It came from a teammate.

Bettman was hoping to fire a shot at NHLPA chief Bob Goodenow when the league released a report on Thursday. The report was the end result of a year-long audit by Arthur Levitt, the man who once headed the Securities and Exchange Commission. Levitt found that only 11 (of 30) NHL teams were profitable last season, and that the entire industry was “going south.”

No, he didn’t mean Tampa Bay would win the Stanley Cup. He meant to say the industry is in trouble.

Taken on its merits, the study confirms what Bettman and team owners have been saying all along: the league is hemorrhaging money, and paying out some 75 percent of revenues in players salaries is ridiculous.

Of course, Levitt was paid a quarter-million dollars by the league for the report.

The Players Association reacted by calling the audit “another league public relations initiative.”

Levitt said the NHL is on a “treadmill to obscurity.” More to the point, the game is on the road to ruin. Yes, scoring is down — and interest in most cities is down accordingly. A work stoppage, no matter how long, could be a fatal blow to that interest in much of the country. A long lockout (or strike) could essentially kill the NHL as we know it.

Somewhere, we hope the men who call the shots on both sides understand this.

If there is a group in the middle, it could be the agents; the men who negotiate deals between players and management. They could be the ones to bring the sides together – but they had better do it soon. After all, 10% of nothing was nothing last time I checked.

So the games go on with goalies playing the puck and wearing larger pads. But the trouble continues to brew on the horizon. Enjoy the stretch run – it looks like we might not see another one for a long time to come.

Lewiston native Tom Caron is a studio analyst for New England Sports Network.