What

Love it

And how would you seed the playoffs? Surely you aren't going to let one of Tampa, Carolina or Washington miss the playoffs.

Just like NFL, I like it. Would probably help build rivalries too. The 8-team divisions feel too big. I hope they do something like this instead of just moving ARI to the central. Division winners take home playoff spots, 4 wildcards per conference

For one you could do top 2 teams, but like you said one of those teams would miss, +Florida who is also competitive (if all of their players show up for once) or you could do something like each the top teams in each division get in and then the rest of the conference is sorted by points so you could have 4 teams from one division going or you could do something like that but a cap on 3 teams from each division etc. there are a lot of ways to seed it so that the playoffs are as competitive as possible, I'm sure they would be able to come up with something.

Pretty much something like this would be the best

One would miss, but either way I think in the NHL now good teams miss the playoffs every year, probably not at the level that it would be with one of these teams but yea, it would be fun!

I think simplifying it makes more sense. East/West, and 1-8 seeding. You may end up losing out on rivalry match ups in round 1, but it's more fair overall

4 sure, kinda like Basketball

You could simplify but I think the NHL would lean into 8 divisions because of the ability to hype up rivalries which could bring up ticket sales and potentially reduce travel costs but I also like 16 team split in terms of competitiveness in the playoffs

I think you done a good job here creating 8 divisions. The only comment (more like wishful thinking) seeing Toronto and Detroit in the same division, and Washington with Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. The Caps have had great rivalries with both clubs.

How would schedule be made?