If the owners went after the contracts, the PA would go after the cap, and it would be a longer fight than 04-05, since the players would have less to lose. It might only go a year and a half, but it would be a fight.
Replace Bettman for Fehr, owners for players, and lockout for strike, and it's the same paragraph.
You can't really compare any of the leagues to each other. They're all different in their owns ways. The cap in the NBA is big, but they also have 12-14 players or whatever on the roster. A lot of money for far fewer people. Plus if you have 2 really good players, you're a contender, because the best players can play for over 70% of a game. In the NHL, the best forwards play 35% of the time.
How many labor issues did the NHL have before the mid 90's? How many did the other leagues have before the mid 90's? The NHL has been catching up because for decades there were no labor issues, and not because each side liked each other so much. And it's working with the smallest pot of money, which isn't simply because Bettman is evil.