Minnesota travels 31,000 miles. New Jersey travels 11,000. It isn't fair, never was going to be. I absolutely think they should do away with conferences and divisions in a shortened season like this and play a round robin against 29 other teams with your remaining 19 as doubles (in the other team's building from the first game) and try and balance it as much as possible. Outside of games in Winnipeg (or every game Winnipeg plays on the road), the East never has to leave their time zone. The West is going to be playing across four time zones every single night. It is sadly the state of the league imbalance.
Maybe, just fucking maybe, had they included realignment in the CBA and split the league into three conferences like it should be (top 16 getting into the playoffs), the travel and start time disparity wouldn't be so god fucking terrible. But nah, lets just kick that can down the road because we didn't start really negotiating the CBA until late December after half the season was cancelled. That is why the smart money is on an Eastern team to win the Finals. The Western teams are going to be dead by the playoffs with this condensed schedule and massive travel time, especially with all the back to backs (the Wings and Hawks play TWENTY FOUR back to back games)