The NHLPA and NHL will meet this week to open discussions on a variety of issues that include the possibility of increasing the salary cap beyond the prescribed $1 million, Slap Shots has learned.

Executive director Marty Walsh, who has been on the job for two months, and newly appointed assistant director Ron Hainsey will confer with commissioner Gary Bettman after having conducted three meetings with player agents in precincts across the continent over the last couple of weeks.

The Players’ Association is on record that the union will not be willing to raise the escrow ceiling of six percent for each of the next three seasons as a trade-off for elevating the cap above $83.5 million.

We have learned that the PA is willing to discuss increasing the schedule to 84 games.

That could be a chip if the commissioner does not adopt his typical intransigent take-it-or-leave-it stance.

We’re told that a look at shortening training camp is on the agenda in addition, of course, to the state of the perpetually distressed Coyotes after ownership’s bid to build an arena in Tempe, Ariz., was rejected by voters, just the way the Lighthouse project had been denied by voters on Long Island in 2011.

The future of the Coyotes franchise is in the same flux it has been since the team moved to Glendale, Ariz., in 2003, remaining the constant drain on hockey-related revenues it has been with the commissioner’s unwavering and zealous support for two decades.

This is Gary’s Folly.

And no, the league will not leap to relocate the franchise when doing so might eliminate a potential expansion destination that could produce an entry fee of between $750 million and $1 billion that would be shared exclusively among the owners.

Slap Shots has also learned that Coyotes players filed multiple complaints with the PA during the season about sub-standard travel, lodging and logistical issues that were in violation of the collective bargaining agreement.

That will be addressed this week.

Business is personal.

Never forget that.

Brendan Shanahan sure didn’t when outgoing general manager Kyle Dubas presented the Maple Leafs president with contract demands that might as well have been divorce papers.

The progressive front-office partnership that had restored the franchise to prominence had been torn asunder after fissures had begun to materialize throughout the season, relating to personnel issues.

In its wake, there is a clear sense of betrayal.

Dubas apparently believed he had leverage after he exhibited public angst over remaining in his role while invoking his family in a press conference his boss — Shanahan — suggested he not attend.

The GM — the former GM — apparently misread the room.

He lost his rabbi in the organization.

After four days of mixed or misinterpreted messages, Shanahan shut the door on the conversation and ended the relationship.

He has bosses, too, and those bosses had previously made the decision not to give Dubas a contract extension last summer.

Enough became enough.

And so the Maple Leafs are left scrambling and will hire a more conventional general manager unless Shanahan is willing to entrust whatever is left of his tenure at the top of an organization to an untested candidate who has the same priorities as Dubas.

He will hire a general manager who presumably will dismiss head coach Sheldon Keefe.

Intelligence suggests that Brad Treliving, late of the Flames, is emerging as a prime candidate following Calgary ownership’s reversal in allowing their former GM to seek employment before his contract expires June 30 after initially barring him from doing so. Marc Bergevin?

Oh, come on, does he sound like a Shanahan person to anyone?

Dubas said last Monday that he would either return as Leafs GM or step away from the league for a time.

It is impossible to know whether that was a sincere and heartfelt expression of emotion or simply the opening lines of a script.

That’s probably too harsh.

Still, representation of family concerns morphed quickly into a reach for a higher payday.

Business was personal. Isn’t it always?

So we’re told by a reputable source that the disgraced Mike Babcock is “far down the line with a team,” and the inference is that the team is the Blue Jackets.

Really, JD?

Or as one player suggested by text, “[Johnny] Gaudreau can’t catch a break.”

If a 29-year-old in his seventh season can become a breakout star in the playoffs, then Brandon Montour is that player for a Florida team that is not only wildly entertaining, but also zoned in on details.

One of those details happens to be Sergei Bobrovsky returning to the elite form that had escaped him since he signed that seven-year, $70 million free-agent deal with the Panthers in 2019-20.

This is the greatest goaltending turnabout in memory, or at least since Roberto Luongo couldn’t stop a puck in Boston in 2011.

Montour played 57:56 Thursday in the Panthers’ quadruple-overtime, 139:47 Game 1 victory over Carolina, but what caught my eye is that 36-year-old Marc Staal was on for 44:44.

Eleven years earlier, Staal played 49:34 of the Rangers’ 114:41, Game 3 triple-overtime victory (on Marian Gaborik’s winner) in the second round at Washington.

Sixth defenseman Stu Bickel got 3:24 of ice time, nailed to the bench for the final 90:23 after completing his third and last shift at 4:18 of the second period.

So Wayne Gretzky being “lucky” on TNT after pinpointing Anthony Duclair’s speed as a factor before The Duke’s speed indeed did become a factor against the Hurricanes was just like No. 99 being “lucky” on his 894 goals.

The TNT panel that features Gretzky, Henrik Lundqvist, Anson Carter, Paul Bissonnette and moderator Liam McHugh makes for the best U.S. network hockey studio show since U.S. networks started doing hockey studio shows.

Maybe the decision to grant Philadelphia head coach John Tortorella meaningful input on personnel decisions as part of a management triumvirate with the universally popular and insightful incoming president Keith Jones plus incoming GM Danny Briere will work out just fine for the Flyers.

No, really.

I mean it.

(No, I don’t.)