Do NOT mistake this recess in bargaining orchestrated by the NHL after the league’s third outright walkaway from talks in the last two months as anything other than what it is intended by the owners and the suits on Sixth Avenue.

For this is not a “cooling off” period. Anything but. This, rather, is a scripted gap meant to whip up dissent within the NHLPA rank-and-file and turn up the heat on Don Fehr. This is a stretch in which ownership and management mean to scare the players into a stampede to either overthrow or sidestep their elected leader.

The league has become fixated on Fehr as its target just as it was fixated on Bob Goodenow eight years ago. It was hysterical on Thursday to hear Canceler-in-Chief Gary Bettman bemoan that he hadn’t had time to develop a working relationship with the current union leader when the NHL itself had fomented the treachery within the PA that led directly to the end of Goodenow’s reign and indirectly to the chaos and instability that followed.

A week ago we reported and exposed the fib that had been circulating throughout the Board of Governors that Fehr would receive an $8 million payout if the union ratified a CBA against his recommendation.

Now, we can report and expose another canard that reflects the league’s paranoia about sitting down at the table with Fehr:

Owners and management representatives have been told that Fehr never actually negotiated a CBA with Major League Baseball and that the players pushed him aside in order to complete deals in 2002 and 2006.

This is utter nonsense. But a slur such as this fuels belief around the league that Fehr, like Goodenow before him, simply cannot be dealt with. It deflects criticism from Bettman and ownership to deliver a product to its customers.

When Bettman and sidekick Bill “The Hill” Daly mounted the stage of a Midtown hotel conference room on Thursday night, it was truly Theatre of the Absurd. Within an hour of Fehr having stood in the same spot with the audacity to express hope that a deal should be near, the tandem from Sixth Avenue threw a tantrum in which they basically shouted: “Who are you going to believe, us or your lying eyes?”

Because anyone and everyone who can read can indeed see for themselves: The sides are thread-the-needle close to a deal. The league wants a 10-year CBA with an eight-year out clause. The union wants an eight-year CBA with a six-year out clause. The league wants five-year contract limits with seven-year limits for teams to sign their own players. The union wants eight-year limits to apply across the board.

That’s about it. A couple of split-the-difference items plus the issue of amnesty buyouts that arises because of what will be a steep drop in the cap for 2013-14 and because absent such a transition, there will be nearly 10 teams without the means to create cap space to complete their rosters.

This is what the league angrily stalked away from? Yes, this is what the league angrily stalked away from, on cue, as choreographed.

The owners and Bettman walked away from the deal because they do not want to complete a deal with Fehr. They want him removed from the equation. That has become their primary mission, a priority greater than negotiating a CBA and saving the 2012-13 season.

There is no other conclusion to draw after Calgary owner Murray Edwards’ declaration to Winnipeg defenseman Ron Hainsey on Wednesday that if Fehr were to rejoin the talks, “It could be a deal-breaker.”

There is no doubt there are a number of players who would accept the league’s last offer. The folks on Sixth Avenue knew that Thursday morning and they know that now. That’s why they staged the walkaway, that’s why Abbott and Costello — uh, Bettman and Daly — railed about withdrawing everything from the table.

The league is attempting to run out the clock on Fehr. It is doing everything possible within the confines of U.S. labor law to encourage an uprising within the union.

The players, of course, are free to choose their path. But as much as they want to play, as much as they want to resume their careers — as much as they all want that — they should recognize overthrowing or sidestepping Fehr essentially ends the concept of a Players’ Association.

You can’t do that twice in two consecutive collective bargaining sessions and expect to attract any credible individual to lead or work for the union in the future. The NHLPA — or whatever it becomes — will be on its own.

On Oct. 24, 2006, baseball commissioner Bud Selig announced the adoption of a five-year CBA two months before expiration of the existing agreement.

“This is a golden era in every way,” said Selig, who shared the dais with the executive director of the MLBPA with whom he had negotiated the deal, a man named Donald Fehr.

larry.brooks@nypost.com