Not sure it's a path that either side would really want to go down (players would have to agree to the reduction of HRR), but the 82 game season length is an arbitrary number and too long IMO.
The math just works really well for 76. Each team can have an extra 'bye-week', you cut out a few Monday and Tuesday night games, and maybe even award the Stanley Cup before June 1. We might not see as many players reach 100 pts in a season, but most of us are smart enough to compute PPG anyways.
My other crazy idea is a pre-season replacement for the World Cup (every 4 years counter Olympics)...a 3 on 3 Canada Cup - Canada could field three teams (West, Ontario, East), each with their own group. Very low injury risk - for good players, the first few days of training camp are mostly about cardio, which would be achieved just as well playing 3v3.
With shorter games (20, 24, or 30 mins), the whole tourney could take as little as 4 days. You might even maximize value by holding round robin on the first weekend of training camp, and then the playoff rounds a couple weekends later.
Between that and playoff play-in games, I think you'd recover a fair chunk of the revenue lost in cutting 6 reg season games. And a better overall product IMO.
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