With all the nonsense going on in the NFL and the financial hit the league has taken from last season I wonder what would happen if the NHL took a 10% loss in gross revenue? because the salary cap is tied to gross revenue.

This was something I pondered way back when the salary cap was put in place. What would happen if teams couldn't get under the cap ceiling? this is one of the flaws with the salary cap, because such a scenario is very possible - highly unlikely but possible. I mean right now 21 out of the 31 teams are presently within only 3.5 million of the caps upper limit and only 9 teams have over 5 million in cap space so when you think about it if the salary cap did go down 7-10 million the NHL would break the salary cap - in that case players would get peanuts - literally peanuts ... 2 million for a guy that would otherwise make 8 or 9 million. You figure at that point the NHLPA would step in and crap would hit the fan..

And IMO, this is bound to happen at some point, and when it does happen it will send the NHL into crisis mode. I would like to think the NHL has a plan for this in the event it happens.

Has anyone else ever thought about this?

Right now if the salary cap went down 10 million only Arizona and Carolina would have cap space.. That is a real issue.