There will likely be some give and take for stability at least over the next couple seasons, but theres imo zero chance any dramatic rollback in cap happens without it leading a lockout. Hence Burkes suggestion of a 50% cap reduction as early as next season seems fairly outlandish at this point in time
I'm not buying Burke's 50% cap either, however there could be a $10-12 mil drop say from $81.5 to say $70 mil if the season is not competed, due to lost revenue.
This is where the NHL comes up with ways for teams to get in cap compliancy via 1 time buyouts that don't count against the teams salary cap going forward. ie Leafs could buy out Tavares and save $11 mil with no cap hit penalty and play at $70 mil next year with a full team.. This is what the NHL did when they went from no cap to a cap system and again when there was a partial lockout year. So this is not a new idea, but one already used in the past. In fact in the past the buyout QTY was unlimited as to how many contracts a team could buyout, and Leafs might buy out 3 X 3-$4 mil contracts (ie AJ, Kapanen and Kerfoot) instead of 1 big one like JT.
This option doesn't involve NHLPA approval because buyouts are part of the CBA now as tools for teams to use. The only change would be NHL owners agreeing that this one time buyout option of contracts due to the virus impact does not count against the teams salary cap like normal buyouts would. .However the buyout tool is there to keep owners honest, it has nothing to do with players.
The bought out players get their money (2/3rds now and that might be changed to 100%) and then get to double dip by signing a new deal again overlapping the contract years of the bought-out one. This more money to the player.
The other option I mentioned was player escrow which is also a management/ownership tool in the CBA of withholding player wages to make sure there is a 50-50 profit/loss split. If the Salary Cap drops 10-15% from last year all the owner need to do is increase league wide player escrow by a similar amount to adjust back to equal partnership of sharing revenue. While this escrow figure does involve the NHLPA the other option would be a league wide salary rollback of all contracts so escrow is the better option or better of two evils from a players perspective.