Since the beginning of the COVID19 virus, the NHL's salary cap has remained flat, so they've been looking for ways to add money, and it's been with adding new types of advertising. They've also ensured that every teams gets to face each other atleast once per season, so a team like Arizona can get the benefits of a player like Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby or Alex Ovechkin coming to their arena.
Not too long ago the NHL went to a divisional playoff model to build more of a rivalry in the playoffs, which to some degree has worked, but the more the league has expanded, the less divisional games have been played amongst teams and at the moment teams are only playing teams 3 times per season from their division.
Now people did not like seeing their team play the same team over and over again like they did in the COVID season, but now imagine you get to see the battle of Alberta build over the regular season and then meet again in the playoffs. That could be some entertaining hockey.