The season isnt too long as much as they've made far too many no emotion, no one cares forgettable games by moving away from emphasizing divisional opponents. Go back to emphasizing divisional games in the regular season. This "play everyone twice" crap is causing too many throw away games. It's also choking the life out of rivalries. Familiarity breeds contempt.
For example, its garbage that the Bruins only played the Canadiens 3x. It should be 6x a year like it was, then play the other division in your conference 3x and play the other conference once. (42 division games + 24 conference games + 16 other conference games). Get the emotion and hatred back into the game and the games will be more exciting to watch.
Nuke all teams west of the 100th Meridian and reset the league as it was meant to be played. Local ties and rivalries between big name cities. Every away game should be no more than a days train ride away. San Jose? Vancouver? UTAH? May as well have teams in Europe as the guy above said or even Siberia. It's ridiculous what Eastern teams have to go through traveling out west, screwing with time zones and adjusting to the culture. And that's not even getting into my real issues as a fan - 10 or 11 PM puck drop on a Tuesday night? Who do they think I am? So my kids are going to risk missing the school bus because my Sens are on a 'western road swing'? f*** that. Chicago, maybe Minnesota should be the absolute limit. Maybe cull a few of the more southern teams as well.
Nations Hockey LeagueThe perfect NHL for me would include a European Conference, with a coupla divisions (Northern and Central, perhaps?).
Of course, the name "NHL" is a misnomer even today, because the league stretches across two different nations. I suppose the NHL would need to be renamed to, say, WHL (World Hockey League), but I would have no issue with that.
Or, we can close our eyes and keep calling it NHL even after it expands to become a global league – just like we close our eyes to its current name making no sense.
I'm not kidding in the least. World-wide sports leagues are the path of the future. We'll get there one day – it's only a matter of time. Let's hope it's gonna be sooner rather than later.
(Yup, if the league is to consist of 44 or even more teams, a round-robin home-and-away format would no longer be feasible, in all likelihood. Some other playing format would need to be devised. I agree that 82 games per regular season is too much, or let's say, 82 or 84 games is the absolute maximum that anyone should require of these athletes. A reduction to around 70 would likely be reasonable, but it's improbable to happen.)
I'm not remotely equipped to find the best solution on the cap situation, but I would implement a daily salary cap for the postseason.
I'm sorry, but I'm pretty sure the thread I was responding to is "What is your perfect NHL" not "What time does @Faterson have to wake up to watch NHL games?"