I will eat my Karlsson jersey if Eugene Melnyk spends within 10% of the cap in any of those years. Maybe you haven't been around long enough, I'm not sure, but the man is a complete hype-mongering liar. His words literally mean nothing.
In this case, quite literally. The statement was that he "will plan to spend close to the NHL's salary cap every year from 2021-to-2025."
1. He's not committing to spending close to the salary cap – merely to plan on doing so.
2. Define "close" in relation to the salary cap. Within 10% of the upper limit? We're already there right now, even with this trash fire of a team. Within five percent? Within two per cent? It's meaningless if it's not quantifiable because, as we've seen this organization do time and time again, they'll just move the goalposts to suit their needs and treat the fans like idiots.
3. How is he going to do this, exactly? Does he intend on retaining our core players now? Overpaying past-their-prime players to ensure this meaningless "promise" is met?
4. Melnyk et al couldn't be counted on to predict six months ahead of time, as evidenced by their total lack of preparation for the swift downfall following the Turris trade and losing Methot to expansion. If we can't trust short-term projections, how on earth can we trust long-term projections?
5. If, for whatever reason, circumstances change, what's stopping him from saying "Well, I made that promise in good faith, but people aren't buying tickets and we've already had to slash the front office to bare bones yada yada yada..."
Nope. Snake oil salesman. Not buying it again. Fool me once, shame on you. But teach a man to fool me and I'll be fooled for the rest of my life.
