PITTSBURGH (AP) The salary cap was a passion project for Mario Lemieux, the owner, when the NHL wrestled with it during the 2004-05 lockout even though he knows it would have been something Mario Lemieux, the player, would have fought to the bitter end.
”We couldn’t compete with the (New York) Rangers and LA and the big markets and Chicago and Detroit,” the Pittsburgh Penguins Hall of Famer-turned-chairman recalled.
So Lemieux pushed for the cap during the NHL’s lost winter, well aware the ripple effects would include a rise in league parity at the potential expense of the dynasties that have been a part of the league since it started awarding the Stanley Cup nearly a century ago.