I’m not sure that the article you linked to supports your opinion on the cap, but it (and your ‘rant’) have a couple of interesting points.

To say that Tanguay and Drury are gone and Tucker and Ledin are in is a little disingenuous. That implies that the Avs have gone away from skill to fully embrace gritty, douchey play, which isn’t the case. Our top six of Stastny, Wolski, Smyth, Svatos, Hejduk, and Sakic (assuming he returns) match up well with any top six in the league for skill and scoring ability. The loss of Bruno didn’t knock that group down a peg, IMO. The addition of Tucker was weird, but I think he can contribute with his style of play and his scoring touch too. We lamented that the Avs got pushed around a little the last couple of seasons and guys like Lappy and McLeod had to do the lion’s share of duty when it came to pushing back. Now the team has Footer, Salei, Tucker, Ledin AND Lappy and McLeod. They shant be as easily handled as some of the teams that have been iced in the unipron in recent years.

However, you contention that the cap was the driving factor in those changes isn’t dead-on in my opinion either. The style of success (as I like to call it) in the West has lead to those changes. If the Avs played in the East with the lineups they had in the last couple of seasons, they would easily have been tough enough to be considered one of, if not THE, toughest team in that Conference. Unfortunately, they play in the West and were about middle of the pack for the style of play there. Physical play is rewarded easier than skill in the West. That’s just the way it has been for a while. If you’re suggesting that the cap forced the Avs to go cheap this year, then yes, but only in the most literal sense. The Avs were big spenders last season, and since Smyth and Hannan signed for more than one season, then logically, you can’t spend that money again the next year.

Your point #1 flies 180 degrees in the face of the intention of the cap. The salary floor is there to force teams like Hotlanta to actually TRY before they can dip into the revenue-sharing bucket. While Waddell and Co. where some of the biggest supporters of the cap, they are some of the biggest failures since its implementation. The same goes for Florida and Phoenix. For Florida, it wasn’t a lack of money, it was a lack of anything resembling a clue on how to run a successful franchise. Phoenix seemed to think that attaching Gretzky’s name to the team would insure them success without having any viable prospects or gameplan for two or three years. Surprise, it didn’t work. The cap had nothing to do with those failures. Those teams would have failed regardless because the management teams couldn’t find their five-holes with a searchlight and the National Guard. I’m kinda like Burnside. They have been given every shot to succeed, but if the teams can’t figure out how to operate in this arena, after a while, you have to cut your losses. It isn’t about fans or local support, IMO, it’s about organizations without a clue trying to do the bare minimum to turn a profit and it blowing up in their faces.

Point #2 is also confusing to me. The loss of the season was necessary due to the owners’ desire for a cap and the players’ hardline stance against it. You can question the necessity of why you lost a season when the players caved-in and gave the owners everything they asked for, but as for the dollar amount, I don’t see how that’s relevant. The intent of the lockout and the cap wasn’t to reduce the amount of money spent on teams, but was about controlling salaries in relation to league revenue. The cap does that. What individual teams do (overpaying middle-tier defensemen) with that revenue-based money is still susceptible to stupidity of Maple Leaf Pride proportions.

Your rant seems more to stem from you missing the days when the Avs were one of the REALLY big dogs on the street who could go out and buy anybody, anytime, anywhere. Those days are gone. NHL teams have to be real live or-gan-EYE-zations with long-range plans, contingency, effective management and personnel decisions, and wise money management. Throwing money at problems in the NHL won’t work anymore. That’s what the cap has changed.

Don’t forget, the cap CAN GO DOWN, should the NHL as a whole suffer economically. There was no such reassurance before the lockout.