Salary cap in my opinion is one of the worst things to have ever happened to the NHL. There are many issues regarding the sport and the multiple terrible CBA's but the Salary Cap for me is by far and away the worst thing to have ever happened to the sport.
Players do not receive the salaries that they should on the high end and are massively overpayed on the low end (quality wise). It also means that you have teams that do the bare minimum, they know that at a certain salary level they wont be garbage but they will never be good enough to win it all. They stick themselves firmly in the middle and give their fans glimmers of hope from time to time.
This would be the worst possible outcome in my opinion.
A transfer cap would actually be more reasonable, as then the players can still force themselves out of certain teams, and as well the smaller teams will not have to accept a bid because they know that the team cannot go higher. It brings down inflation and would help in my opinion.