As N.H.L. Talks Continue, N.B.A. Could Aid in Solution Negotiators for the N.H.L. and the players association bargained for a second straight day at an undisclosed location in Manhattan on Wednesday and promised to meet for a third, signaling further progress toward a solution to the 53-day lockout. "The N.H.L.P.A. and the N.H.L. met today to discuss many of the key issues," Donald Fehr, the union's executive director, said in a brief statement released Wednesday night. We look forward to resuming talks tomorrow. Negotiations began around 3:30 p.m. and continued until about 9 p.m. They followed a Tuesday bargaining session that lasted about seven hours. Fehr and Commissioner Gary Bettman headed the delegations on each side. The league did not release a statement. The main obstacle between the two sides was how to honor existing player contracts when the players" share of the league's revenue drops from 57 percent to 50 percent. The N.B.A. lockout of 2011 may provide a clue as to how that obstacle may be overcome. "Everyone wants to compare," Sidney Crosby told reporters in Pittsburgh before departing for New York to attend Tuesday's bargaining session. It does have some resemblance. When the N.B.A. lockout was settled a little less than a year ago, the league's owners honored existing player contracts. The language in the new collective bargaining agreement guaranteed that salaries signed previously "shall continue to be calculated in accordance with the salary cap rules that were in existence at the time the contract was entered into." That is the language the N.H.L. Players" Association wants in a new agreement with the league. The owners went on a signing binge in the weeks before the lockout, including the Minnesota Wild's signing of Zach Parise and Ryan Suter to twin 13-year, $98 million deals. The players want such deals honored in full. The N.H.L. had proposed a system under which players with existing contracts would receive deferred payments, but the money used to make those payments would have been subtracted from all players" share of revenues. Both sides may have softened their stance in the current round of talks, and the N.B.A."s experience may offer a solution. N.B.A. players had their share of revenues reduced from 57 percent to 50 percent, the same reduction N.H.L. players have already agreed to. But the N.B.A. has a soft salary cap, allowing teams to go over the cap if they pay a luxury tax, or to have certain contracts exempted from cap calculations. The N.H.L. has a hard cap, leaving the league with three ways to solve the problem of existing contracts, said Marc Ganis, a sports industry consultant. "You can honor them, which would put teams against the cap and mean they'd have to get rid of their midlevel players, so you'd be left with a team of a few high-paid stars and the rest at the salary minimum," Ganis said. He said another alternative was to increase the percentage of salaries held in escrow, an approach used by the N.B.A. but one already rejected by N.H.L. players. The third alternative, Ganis said, would be to adopt a soft, N.B.A.-type salary cap that would allow N.H.L. teams to pay luxury taxes for going over the limit. He said that would enable N.H.L. teams to retain high-priced stars like Parise and Suter without having to waive midlevel players. "It all comes down to the math," Ganis said. How do you pay the players with current contracts in full while lowering the overall share all players get? It's a tough issue.