Is the cap going to rise significantly

I think it’s easy to see why. With Seattle coming in a few years, the influx of cash they’ll be bringing in, the cap will go up by a lot, just as it did when Vegas came into town. Also, the American broadcasting rights are up next year. The NHL will get another load of juice money from a new deal there.

The only reason the cap might not be increasing much for the next 2 years is due to the CBA expiring.

Do you think this may also mean that the CBA is including possible compliance buyouts? I know Melnyk's stated he thinks compliance buyouts are a form of cap circumvention, but that's just because he's cheap. Most teams could use a compliance buy out or two and the NHL product as a whole would be better...no?

Some pretty good points there.
This will sound very controversial but I feel it needs to be said: the NHL and hockey in general will grow but not at the rate their counterpart the NBA.

Why am I comparing the NHL and NBA? In the 80's and 90's these two leagues were comparable financially and t.v. revenue was similar for both.
What's happened since then is the popularity of one League rise ahead (especially in the US) while the other hasn't been on the big sports network in how long now?

The NHL needs to change and badly. I mean this in the sincerest way possible so the league I love to watch and follow can continue to grow.
NHL needs new blood so it can compete and stay relevant long term.

this is the biggest bunch of nonsense I have seen today. It's a lot easier to see a big orange ball than a tiny black puck on those old 1990s tvs. Which is why there wasn't growth in hockey till larger HD tvs became a thing.

Furthermore, the NHL is growing exponentially while the NBA is shrinking. The attendance between the two in games is almost even now.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/207458/per-game-attendance-of-major-us-sports-leagues/

The NBA got it's growth into other markets beyond north america. That's coming with the NHL now too. It takes time for the NHL to catch up because they started later due to technology. But they will eventually pass the NBA in popularity because it's a better product. Even the people in the NBA know that.

The NHL has always been a gate driven league. The NBA's tv revenues are ten times the NHL's, that's where the real money is. Everytime historically a new tv deal was approaching, we had a lockout or threat of lockout which drove the NHL's bargaining power down with the networks.