If they want to do something interesting, forget conferences. Why does east have to beat west, rather than best beat best the whole way through? It’s such an ancient established thing, but really who cares? Go 1 vs 16, 2 vs 15, etc. Some series will have poop travel so maybe have higher seed get the first three games, lower get the next two, and higher the last two.
This will give true home ice advantage and get rid of several great teams killing each other off in the conference when really teams from the other conference would’ve/should’ve been eliminated instead.