76 game season would be ideal and very simple (7x4games; 24x2 games). It's a 7.3% reduction in supply - I don't think it would be too detrimental to gate revenue, but probably moreso to TV contracts.
A 5v4 play-in game in each division would help offset a fair bit though.
For final four, I would determine home ice seed based on goal differential between the teams involved in their games for that season. Mitigates a team that manages to rack up a ton of points because their division sucks. It would suck for a 112 pt 1 seed from the Pacific to be the road team against a 97 pt 3 seed from the Central that makes it through their division, just because you beat them once by 1 and they beat you once by 2...but those are the breaks and it just means that every game matters. It would also reward goal-scoring.
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