The first statement is, “But when they have to bid against each other for Free Agents and that artificially drives up the price since each team wants to win”

Why do the owners “have” to bid against each other? No where else in the economy are people “forced” to spend more than they can afford. As a software guy, are you “forced” to buy the latest books and software and hardware? of course not, you make decisions based on your circumstances and weigh the cost/benefit of the situation. if buying a $35 book, will help you in your career that you feel with be worth the $35, then you would probably go buy it unless you had other concerns. These owners are completely out of control and need the cap, to guarantee that they will make XX number of dollars a year and to save themselves from retarded contracts like Bobby Holik (NYR), Jaromir Jagr(WSH), and pretty much everyone else on the Rangers. If the players went into free agency, looked around and said, “hey, this guy is similar to me in cailber, and he’s making $2,3 million over 2 years, that’s what I will probably get”. unfortunately, you had retard owners trying to buy a championship, and screwing up the market. So in my mind, the market is created by the owners, and the way to correct the market, much like in baseball, is to hand over the player personel to responsible people. Theo Epstein in Boston (boston SUX!), billy beane in oakland, terry ryan in minnesota, and sabean in san francisco to name a few. these people don’t whine about how much they can spend, but do the best job with their circumstances.

The second assertion you made, that I disagree with is the following:

“Well guess what, the two leagues generating the most revenue and having a lot of success are the NFL and the NBA”

Both those leagues are very successful but I wouldn’t say that they are successful because of the salary structures.

First let’s look at the NBA. they have a soft cap, and escalating penalties. So teams like the NY Knicks (I hate isiah thomas), and the Dallas Mavericks are way over the cap. So is Portland for that matter. These teams have had varying degrees of success, but at the heart of it, is the team they’ve put together. Detroit ranked 18th in salary out of 30 NBA teams and won the championship. And they’re not the exception to the rule. San Antonio was ranked 23rd in team salary . Those teams found a winning formula, rather than spending money on every loser (isiah thomas, are you listening??). In fact, of the top 5 team salaries, only one of them made it to the playoffs (dallas).

This situation is much more pronounced in the NFL where you don’t need (or even necessarily want) all the superstars. you need people to do the dirty work, the grunt work. that’s what makes football much more intriguing to me. Look at the redskins, titans and texans.

Will this cap guarantee that NHL teams don’t offer assinine contracts? no. it just means that no matter how stupid the GMs get, the owners are guaranteed money.