I hope your Go Owners Go chant was sarcastic. Seriously, I don't understand how anyone can take either's side. I'm neutral; they're both being @$$holes about the whole thing and need to be willing to give up more. I see the problems of the players in this situation more clearly, so I hate the owners a bit more but they both p!ss me off. What's discouraging is the number of hockey yahoos who don't know the economics or issues at stake. If we get a salary cap, I guarantee 1/3 of the people bashing the players and wanting a cap so badly will complain. It's hypocrisy all around.
Now, the other 2/3 will see it as a small price to pay to save the economic spiral the NHL is in. But others will go back on their old staunch positions and bemoan when their favourites teams must give up their superstars at early stages of their careers. And not with a trade, but an outright cut. Of course, unless a cap like the NBA's that allows going over the limit to resign stars. But that won't fix all problems. There aren't any guaranteed contracts in a hard cap.
In a cap, it won't totally hinder superstars from making just as much money as they do now but the lower level guys will be jerked around from town to town even worse than now except not during seasons. You can forget FA season, but the worse part is not as many deadline deals due to working out salary structures. Most trades now will be of future UFAs. You see, in a way, big market teams can get their big UFAs if they so choose to spend a bunch of cash.
A guy like Iginla can sign a 4yr/4Mper deal on the Red Wings when he becomes a UFA cap casualty. Now, a small market team can maybe offer more like Calgary. Maybe same length, 6 million a year. But Detroit can pay Iginla a sick bonus to convince him to take the smaller base salary. Maybe an upfront 20 million dollar bonus. Now this is unless the NHL has a hard cap limiting bonuses/incentives and taxing those perhaps. As well as a rule guaranteeing contracts. Without those two stipulations, the big cheese teams with money can still get the superstar they want to overpay.