I'd group teams into 4 team geographical groups within each division. For Western teams, this means there are 6 groups who are fairly far away (the last group being the rest of your own division). The regular season spans 6 months (and a bit of April).
Each month, every team in one group would travel to another group and play all four of those teams (still in their own planes). For instance, all four of SEA, VAN, CGY, EDM would play all three NY teams + PHI in the same 7-10 day span. Later in the month, the four north pacific teams would all be at home over 7-10 days, and host a different group (say MTL, TOR, OTT, BOS). That leaves the rest of the month for divisional games.
Over the 6 months, each team will have six 4-game road trips out of division (compared to 6 trips to the east coast + 3 to central division for the Flames this year).
Aside from achieving more efficient travel, there are other benefits: amount of travel will be almost identical for all teams in each division, as well as 'strength-of-schedule' - you and your closest rivals will all play the same team at the same times, limiting the impact of injuries/hot/cold streaks (ie. I'd rather play in Pittsburgh in October this season compared to March), or one team in the playoff hunt having a long cross-country road trip near the end of the season unlike their rivals. I think it would also be good from a fan interest standpoint...if I know Calgary is hosting the New York teams next week, maybe I'll tune into the Rangers-Devils game tonight and/orpay more attention to their highlights/news.
Obviously, it would be hard to do it 100%, but even with a few alterations here and there (some trips become 5 or 3 games, etc.) it would be a much better, and more predictable structure.
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