Milo;307592 wroteWhy should they? Your entire post is nonsense from the start. The most successful professional sports league in the world is, arguably, the NFL. Every year their competition committee makes small adjustments (and some HUGE ones) to the rules to improve the product on the field. THAT is how you improve your market share in an ever more crowded environment. No one looks at these changes and says, "You can't do that!" The reason they don't is because they understand that the game needs to adapt to it's fans desires or it will lose them. The NHL could be forward thinking like the NFL, and make changes to the game that would have minimal impact on existing fans, but would be an enticement to new ones. The fact that they do not do this just proves how stupid the people running this league are.
The NHL makes those minor tweaks every couple seasons. Maybe not anything as obvious ad banning fighting, but there are multiple discussions (GM meetings, preseason R&D camps) that have proposed rule changes tested (with college/CHL players) and voted on. Not saying there are changes every season, or that I agree with the ones they do make, but there are certainly discussions.
A few years ago goals were down so they talked about a whole pile of ways to increase scoring, including bigger nets, small goalie equipment, the trapezoid, no red line, enforcing the clutching and grabbing, all kinds of things... Some were implemented, others were not.
As for fighting, it can be an exciting part of the game, but with the number of susbstantial brain injuries that are being found in former athletes and the hypocritical nature of being anti-light breezes that might cause concussions, I'm having a hard time coming up with a reason to only have a moderate penalty for punching people in the head