It is not illegal, they are setting a celling for salaries, not individual player salaries. THe players are free to negotiate any type of contract they want that fits within a teams cap space. Currently there is no market place in the NHL, and there never will be, because if there is the players are gonna go on strike. There are ways around a cap such as upfront signing bonuses, the players will not starve, poor Brain McCabe wont be able to have a decent living with a reduced salary from 5 million to 3 million.
A Cap works in the NBA and NFL effectivley, its harsh, its fair, and there is competitvness and healthy teams for the most part in the NBA. Obviously if the players want to keep continuing being greedy there will be less jobs, less money, and pretty soon its gonna all fall apart. So whats better have a gaurnteed salary of over 50% of team revenues or face a uncertian future, wouldnt everyone in the world be happy if they had a gaurnteed salary of excess of 1.3 million person season, as opposed to knowing if they will have a job tommorow. If teams fold players are gonna out of jobs, and where do they go from there.
This is a fight the player will not and cannot win, its loose loose for them, no one, well the few dumbasses actually side with them, and they are not being paid right now which is great. Its up to them right now continue with the players running the league dicating there salary, or have a even playing field with gaurnteed money for years and years to come, and possibly more, people seem to forget the cap will increase as revenues increase.