So to you its all about active streaks?
I would absolutely count CBJ and NAS as teams thst don't spend to the cap and are getting playoff calibur hockey. Im not talking the entire history of any team here. COL and TOR are primed to have a lot of playoff hockey and neither are spending a ton of money. Obviously, your chances increase with spending and adding good talent but if you are spending and not having good talent, why support that?
You think no matter how bad the Blues are the fans should pay a ton to see them but you cant cause you don't live there. K.
The discussion was about consistency, not single season performance.
Toronto had a higher cap hit than any team in the league last year. Part of that was due to LTIR, but they are absolutely not a budget team. They were top-10 against the cap in the 2 seasons before that. They are going to be right up against the cap next year when they have to pay Matthews, Marner and Kapanan, which is exactly why they are leaving themselves cap space at the moment: ELC bonuses for those guys. All those guys are going to get a couple million in bonuses this year that are currently not being counted against the cap. Toronto is making sure they have cap space now so they don't have to apply bonus overages to next season's hit when Matthews/Marner are going to combine for $12-20 mil in raises. By year's end, I'd bet money that they are near the cap once bonuses are factored in.
Nashville was $2.5 mil shy of the ceiling last year and $3.5 shy the year before. IMO, they are the gold standard of cap management in the current NHL (and also got super lucky that Ellis, Ekholm and Josi all improved after signing longish term deals).
Colorado isn't spending much and hasn't been spending much. They have also in no way been a consistent 1st/2nd round playoff team in that span. They look primed to become a consistent playoff team over the next few years, at which point they owe a massive raise to Rantanen coming of his ELC, decent-to-large raises to Kerfoot/Girard/Compher, will owe some modest raises to some other guys and a big raise to Barrie in a couple seasons.
Columbus will make the playoffs for the 3rd straight year by being a budget team. Before that they missed the playoffs 2 straight years and 6 out of 7 years before that. They also had the only goalie in the league to win 2 Vezinas during that stretch. After this year, they will either be a cap team or will lose a substantial amount of talent and the jury is out on whether they will continue to be a playoff team.
There are very, very few teams who have had consistent playoff appearances without spending at/near the cap. Among those who have, I think there is exactly 1 who has been considered an actual contender to win more than a round. I'm all for shedding salary this year in order to save ownership money in a lost season. But moving forward, you need to be willing to spend near the cap to have sustained success. You can ride ELCs to a successful couple seasons with a low payroll, but you need to be willing to buck up when the raises come due.