NEW YORK -- With two fruitless negotiating sessions behind them and only one month left before an NHL lockout, the league and the players association will return to the bargaining table today.

Time is running short for a new agreement to be hammered out between NHL owners and the NHLPA that would avert a lockout that threatens the season. The sides got together in New York in late July and met again two weeks later in Toronto, but little optimism emerged from those talks.

At least the sides agreed to meet for the third time in six weeks. Not bad after just two meetings between October and July.

"I hope we can make substantive progress," Bill Daly, the NHL's chief legal officer, said. "The time for engaging in a philosophical dialogue is over."

If there isn't a new deal by Sept. 15, a lockout could cut the season in half -- similar to one in the 1994-95 campaign -- or cancel it completely for the first time in NHL history.

The session will be at a hotel in New Jersey near Newark Airport.

"We expect to come out of the meeting with a comprehensive schedule of frequent negotiating sessions and are committed to making every effort over the next 30 days to reach an agreement," Daly said.

NHLPA senior director Ted Saskin wasn't immediately available for comment.

The current deal ended the lockout nine years ago, and has been extended twice.

The July 21 bargaining meeting at the NHL's Manhattan office lasted four hours and featured an exchange of six possible concepts by the league to the union for a new economic system. At the time, Saskin requested more information that was provided at the Aug. 4 meeting.

The NHLPA insisted that each proposal put forth by the NHL carried a salary-cap system that it refuses to accept.

If it comes down to a lockout, this one could turn out worse than the one that lasted 103 days and cut the 1994-95 season nearly in half. Owners have been preparing for that possibility for several years, and have built up a $300 million war chest.