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[QUOTE="Cowtown, post: 3007092, member: 2350"]
Just IMHO. Two big problems: First, the officials have been told to throw the rule book out for the playoffs. So while you need a faster, lighter team for the regular season, you need a different team for the playoffs. Second is Bettman's salary cap. To begin with, several of the league's stars didn't even make the playoffs (Kane, McDavid, Price). The teams with the high profile talent have to pay them so much so they don't have enough left for the third and fourth lines. So the teams with a little better balance run 4 lines at top speed, all through the game. This means teams with any remaining talent (Tampa, Washington, Toronto, Calgary) have their elite lines worn down by relentless waves of basically C+ players, journeymen and rookies.

So Ottawa has already dumped all their talent to rebuild, and Toronto won't have enough $$$ to re-sign their up and coming kids. Chicago's decline began when they couldn't hang on to their second-line players and then signed Toews and Kane to huge contracts.

So the league has a problem. Its profile is at an all-time high, and the owners are making shtloads of money but they don't want to pay anyone other than a couple of high profile stars per team. It's like France in 1789 . :)
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