Despite their efforts, the Canes came up short against a clearly superior defending Stanley Cup Champion Bolts team, albeit with a near-$20M cap differential between the two clubs.
Much has been made of Tampa's questionable salary cap overage, with many viewing the Bolts' handling of the Nikita Kucherov situation as cap circumvention, but according to the CBA, they did not actually break any rules - though I don't think you can argue that they did walk the line.
On Thursday, during the Hurricanes' season-ending media scrum, defenseman Dougie Hamilton brought up the disparity between the two teams' salary figures, but appeared to refrain from accusing the Bolts of any wrongdoing. It did, however, seem like Hamilton was politely placing a bit of an asterisk next to the Bolts' series win.
"We had a great season," Hamilton began. "We lost to a team that's $18M over the cap or whatever they are. They have an unbelievable goalie. I feel like we played them pretty close," he said.
