Those are a couple of intelligent posts...
Yes I miss the NHL. Hockey is my favorite sport and luckily my college (UND) has a good team and an awesome arena. So I still get my hockey fix.
The disheartening thing for me is that the two sides aren't even making an effort.
The players are the one's that are really screwing up. The vast majority of the revenue generated comes from attendance. You cannot make the kind of money they have been making and not have ticket prices go through the roof. The other sports can curb ticket price hikes because of the TV revenue. The NHL does not have that anymore. The players have to take a paycut. Whether or not that is a salry cap, I don't know.
There has to be a way to make it work, but they aren't even trying.