I think that moving Phoenix/Hamilton to the East is a non-starter.
. . . .
For example, to co-ordinate a trip to Phoenix (best linked with Colorado, Dallas, LA), you have to rely on getting at least 2 out of 9 games with those 4 teams,
Whereas, to co-ordinate with Hamilton, you can link with any of Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, Buffalo, Detroit, Boston, NY (3 teams), Pittsbugh, Philly, Chicago, Columbus, Washington (all of these teams are no more than 25% further than than Phoenix to LA). With the current schedule, that is 13 games with many more options for teams to play. Not to mention that Minnisotta is directly on the return flight path from any of these cities for an extra 3 games.
The result, is that travel distance should be reduced with a similar travel length.
For one, there's very little talk about Hamilton being in the East Conference. It would really come down to either Hamilton or Atlanta, and the League could easily keep Hamilton in the West (in the Central) for the time being.
I totally understand where your coming from when you talk about "coordinated roadtrips", but you're talking about Edmonton, or Calgary, or Vancouver travelling to Phoenix, and comparing that with those 3 teams travelling to Hamilton. Phoenix is not in the NW, and therefore only 2 roadtrips were necessary, whereas having Hamilton in the NW would mean 3 roadtrips (going both ways) for all 4 of those teams. And not only the "road" trip but also the "time" travel changing 2 or 3 Time Zones, whereas Phoenix, to continue using your comparison, is in the same Time Zone or only 1 Time Zone away from Vancouver. And Time Zones are important not only to the players but to TV audiences. Almost certainly for most of those 6 games between Vancouver and Hamilton very few people in both cities would get to watch them.
You also mentioned about coordinating a trip to Hamilton with games against other nearby Eastern Conference teams. But again, how many times do Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver play those Eastern Conference teams... really only once in a Season (and half are home games), and if Vancouver, for instance, travels to play Northeast teams, sure they can do Hamilton at the same time but it adds yet another game to that roadtrip.
Let's not forget that teams like Vancouver, Edmonton, Colorado, San Jose, Dallas, Calgary, and Minnesota already have grueling travel schedules. 'OH, it's just adding one more....' yes, one more to the worst already.
And lastly, as I said it doesn't all have to do with travel distance but also with number of Time Zones. But just with respect to travel distance, here's the difference with Hamilton in the Northwest as compared to Colorado:
Vancouver - Colorado = 1775 km
Edmonton - Colorado = 1661 km (same Time Zone)
Calgary - Colorado = 1441 km (same TZ)
Minnesota - Colorado = 1112 km
Total = 5989 km
Vancouver - Hamilton =
3350 km (3 times in a Season)
Edmonton - Hamilton =
2706 km (3 times)
Calgary - Hamilton =
2705 km (3 times)
Minnesota - Hamilton = 1101 km
Total =
9862 km
That's a difference of 3873 km x 3 =
11,619 km extra.
Oh yes, "coordinated" roadtrips... Don't you think the League already tries to do that.
Just as a comparison, take Montreal (the most northern team in the East) and put it in a Division with the 4 most southern teams in the Southeast, and calculate total distance difference that Montreal would have to travel to those 4 teams. (Now of course I know that "coordinated" roadtrips would reduce the overall travel, but just looking at raw distances.)
Montreal - Carolina = 1160 km
Montreal - Atlanta = 1592 km
Montreal - Tampa Bay = 2102 km
Montreal - Florida = 2235 km
Total = 7089 km
And yet, those teams are all in the same Time Zone, not 4 different TZs.