The best regular season I ever experienced was 2012-13 lockout year. Every game meant something, I actually watched a bunch of regular season games in their entirety, which is harder to do with a 82 game slate.
But having said that, on topic, NHL teams average about 7 preseason games. If that were to be knocked down to 5 to do this count me in. Taking the betting angle out, nothing more boring than preseason sports. Know why we need them, just think there are too many preseason games in each sport. Not convinced the NFL, reducing there preseason schedule by 25%, hurt anything.