The perception of what the salary cap will be in response to the NHL pause has changed. Many worried the salary cap would go down instead of up after it was expected to be between $84 and $88 million. That may not worry the Montreal Canadiens too much, but other teams in the league would have beads of sweat falling repeatedly. Now we know that the salary cap won’t go down, but it’s definitely not going up.
The NHL is entering an era of a flat salary cap, which could see it stay at $81.5 million or only go up by small increments each year.