That’s simply not true, people talked about this going back all the way to Crosby and Ovechkin’s contracts and not long after the cap was created.
His sentiment also should not be brought up more as it’s nonsense. The cap percentage at the time the deal was signed is highly relevent to comparing across salary cap years. If a player signed for x against the cap and a year later the cap has risen 5% it’s reasonable to think a comparable player should sign for x+5%
Is it though? The cap is for the whole lineup. The total player's share vs a COLA increase that gets cannibalized by the stars at the top. I don't recall it ever being proposed as dedicated inflation protection for superstars until the agents started pushing that boat out and now its a fact of life.
It used to be that a player signed a deal for a number based on what he did and how much the owners did or didn't earn had nothing to do with it. And when the cap came , the revenue split was between every player in the union and every owner with the intention of giving the players as a whole a guaranteed share of the pie. Not individual star players getting a guaranteed percentage, that would come at the expense of improving the pay for the rest of the lineup.
I can't believe the rank and file union members aren't more resistant to that. Young stars get their bump, along with over the hill players who want massive paydays as though they will never decline and the middle class who are the guys between the ELCs and the stars get squeezed. The agent for the $3M vet is sucking up the cap growth for the stars in his stable at the expense of of his less important clients. Is Willie really worth 3.5 Domis? Why should a player benefit from the growth of the cap when there is no requirement that he continues to perform at the level that got him the deal? If you decline rather than grow, why should your pay check grow? So the owner has to spend more coin on players to absorb your failure to produce without the cap relief that can come only from LTIR .
It would be less of a thing if all clubs experienced the cap the same way and the Leafs would still likely not be better off because they apparently can't say no to a contract demand but in addition to clubs with stars being punished, half the league is signing deals for less than the other half and we are told the players might strike if ownership ever tried to make a tax rate based adjustment. And the Leafs are penalized for both stars and the Cdn tax burden.