Edited Mar. 26 at 4:08 p.m.
I think the problem with changing away from the nhls hard cap, including trading the cap, is because of the precedent used for so long to derive player compensation.
I think the league will eat itself within 5 years if the cap leaves.
As soon as somebody like Auston Matthews -can- be paid what he is worth (about 30-50% more than his current pay in my estimation), he will be paid that much. Once that precedent is established, the next versions of Matthew’s would rightfully demand the same. As this trickles down, the league will be split into 2 - teams that are competitive and teams that are not. At this point, a luxury tax could keep teams afloat financially, but you’re going to lose a lot of your market if you’re a team who simply isn’t competitive. Any wiggle room given to the teams will be gobbled up by elite players as they’re currently underpaid.
If anything, I personally would prefer the league to be more rigid and adjust to the financial differences from taxes and such. The healthiest version of the nhl is one where any team can win, not the ones with the most money OR the most favorable tax situation for the athletes. Everybody makes more money in a high parity league while artificially keeping wages lower than a free market would. All the teams values would increase more in an extreme parity, cost controlled environment than any other.
The only way I’d see the league lose the hard cap and do well is if it split in half, similar to some european football leagues, whereby there was a lower and upper division, and only the upper division teams fought for a championship, lower division teams only fighting for a chance to join the upper league. In this environment you could lose the hard cap but not lose the fringe franchises ability to exist.