Despite earlier reports to the contrary, the salary cap could remain low next season, which could cause problems for teams like the Leafs

Bettman touched on the subject on Tuesday, stating that the league is projecting an escrow balance of approximately $70M remaining when this season comes to a close. If that's the case, then as much as folks were excited about the idea that their favourite teams might have some extra money to spend, it would appear as though that won't be the case.

Bettman would not disclose whether or not the NHL and NHLPA would sit down together at the conclusion of this season to negotiate for a bigger bump in the cap for next season, which, if we know anything about Bettman, likely means that he plans to stay the course, which would mean that a significant rise may not come until the summer of 2024 or 2025.

Perhaps the most disturbing idea in all of this is that this whole ordeal may end up resulting in another lockout situation upon the expiry of the current CBA, which would be an absolute nightmare scenario. With the players being in so much debt with the owners right now, this can't be a fun situation for them and with the league still not gaining any ground on other major sports leagues like the MLB, NBA and NFL and losing ground to other leagues such as MLS, I can't imagine the next CBA negotiations are going to go very smoothly.