The sad part about the cap is that by conventional wisdom, you would think the cap is there to prevent big teams from outspending small teams and thus make a large cap between the good (big) teams and the bad smaller teams. But no, the way the NHL cap works is that you can be the smallest market in the league (so a team like Columbus), and you can eventually get good by drafting well and making smart trades and whatnot. And you still can only remain good for a small window, before you have to start paying guys like they deserve to. A recipe for a good team in the NHL is that you need key pieces to overperform their contracts. And you can only do that for a short while.
It really sucks to see some of the great championship teams, that are actually fun to watch, dissolve after they win the cup. Not because the players would want to move on, but because they can't be kept because of the salary cap.