I'm so sick of this straw man argument. What was the cap in those years? If you remember it was mid 50 million dollars. Thats what our internal budget is now.
Here are the facts: The league has increase revenue every year, therefore the revenue sharing and cap has gone up. Instead of Melnyk going with the movement he has maintained the same spending threshold. Lets just get some facts straight and not just say "he speant to the cap" the dude only wants to spend in the 50's regardless of our performance on the ice. He either breaks even if we have a terrible year or pockets the profits when we go deep.
Talk about a straw man argument...here comes another poster who wants to interpret the numbers how he sees fit to suit his argument that Melnyk is a "cheapskate".
Fact: The team was consistently spending near the cap from 2005-2006 until 2011-2012.
Fact: Very few teams in the league can maintain the increased spending levels that the cap suggests because not ALL the teams are experiencing growth in revenues that matches the top clubs like Toronto, Montreal, Boston, Chicago, LA, New York.
Fact: Spending to the cap doesn't guarantee success.
But let's not let facts get in the way of arguments.
Here's a fun exercise to do. Here's a list of some teams spending more than us this upcoming season. Let me know how many of them you think have a better roster than us:
Ottawa ~$51 million (without Cowen signed)
Buffalo $54.75 million
Colorado $55.6 million
New Jersey $55.4 million
Washington $56.7 million
Toronto $59 million
Carolina $59.3 million
Nashville $62.3 million
Montreal $64.5 million
Tampa Bay $65 million
Dallas $58.4 million
Winnipeg $57.7 million
Columbus $61 million
Edmonton $59 million
Detroit $67.3 million