I can immediately forgive any loss that occurs on the second game of back-to-back games when that second game is played on the road, no questions asked. Those games are predictable enough that I think you have to say that their outcomes have little to do with whatever teams are involved. So, eliminating back-to-back games when that second game is a road game is the biggest step.
You brought up mileage. You know, the last realignment was set for three years, but I think it will go until the 2017-18 expansion, if it happens. If that is the case, and no teams have been relocated from east to west in the interim, then, once again, Detroit, being so far west, will likely be targeted as the eastern team that should play in a western conference. If that happens, Detroit will again be the team traveling the most miles, just as it was for years before.
Detroit is at 83.0458 west. Columbus is at 82.9833 west. If you like math, that's a difference of 0.0625: not a significant difference. However, when you consider that Columbus is more centrally located than Detroit in relation to north and south, and more centrally located than Detroit in relation to the layout of NHL teams, if Columbus moved to the western conference instead of Detroit, then Columbus would end up traveling less miles than Detroit would in a western conference, as a result. And that's an argument that we need to start making now.