The way things have gone for them since mid-November, the Penguins probably wish they could find a way to wipe out the 2008-09 season.

That won't happen, of course, but they -- and every other club in the NHL --- will have an opportunity to put the 2009-10 season in doubt.

Don't count on it, though.

Per the league's collective bargaining agreement, the NHL Players' Association has the option to terminate the labor deal after this season, or to extend it for two more.

Player representatives are collecting input from teammates, and will have a conference call with NHLPA officials in the next few days to decide which path to follow. Not that there figures to be much suspense.

"We haven't had a vote, but I would assume our vote will be to let the CBA run [its course]," said left winger Matt Cooke, the Penguins' player rep.

Any uncertainty about which way to go likely has been exorcised by the ongoing economic crisis, but the CBA has proven to be more player-friendly than many expected.

The salary-cap ceiling has risen annually -- "Salaries are up, higher than they were before the lockout," Cooke said -- and players have benefited from a relaxation of free-agency regulations.

"Right after the lockout, everyone was saying, 'Oh, the players got killed on it,' " defenseman Brooks Orpik said. "Now, every one's saying the free agency is too liberal, and all this other stuff.

"The way it's going, I think the players are more than satisfied with it, so I don't see it being re-opened."

That's reason enough to extend the agreement, but the NHLPA has other incentives.

"The one scenario we have to be aware of is, if we open it up, the owners are allowed to change things, too," Cooke said. "It'd be a dangerous slope. We have to really know what we're doing if that's where we're headed."

Marc-Andre Fleury was the Penguins' best player during the first three rounds of the 2008 playoffs, and his work was one of the major factors in their 11-4-2 start this season.

But Fleury hurt his groin late in a 5-2 victory against Buffalo Nov. 15, and after missing a month, has not consistently reached the level of which he is capable. And which the Penguins desperately need.

It is no coincidence that since Fleury was injured, which happened in their sixth consecutive victory, the Penguins have not won back-to-back games.

Goaltending coach Gilles Meloche believes that Fleury's up-and-down play is part of a self-perpetuating cycle linked to the team's overall performance.

"When you lose games, that's what happens," Meloche said. "You're afraid to give up a goal. You give up a goal, then you start thinking.

"You have to get back to the basics, and just let the puck hit you."

What happens after the puck hits Fleury has been part of the problem. When his game is in synch, it's evident in his rebound-control and puckhandling. Lately, he's been giving up an inordinate number of dangerous rebounds -- a chronic problem earlier in his career -- and opponents have been turning a healthy percentage into goals.

Meloche believes Fleury's troubles with rebounds have been caused, at least in part, by sitting out a month, and doesn't seem worried the relapse will go on indefinitely.

"It's just timing. When you're really confident, the puck sticks to you. Your timing is there. If you're not set, if you're still moving, that's when the rebounds come out," he said.

Trades are a fact of life in pretty much every sport, and even though forward Max Talbot has spent his entire pro career with the same organization, he understands that he might be dealt at some point.

He went through that when he was playing junior hockey, and if the Penguins do decide to move him at some point, they can only hope it turns out better for them than it did for Talbot's original Quebec Major Junior Hockey League team, Rouyn-Noranda, after it discarded him.

The Huskies thought they had a chance to contend for the QMJHL championship, and perhaps even a Memorial Cup title, in 2001, and included Talbot -- their first-round pick in QMJHL's draft a few months earlier -- in a package sent to Hull for a player club executives felt could have an immediate and major impact.

Didn't quite work out that way, though, and Talbot spend the balance of his career with the Olympiques torturing the Huskies.

"For four years after that, we got them out in the first round and I always used to score so much against them," Talbot said. "They still talk about that trade, how it was the worst trade that ever happened."