Mr. Lockout and the NHL owners have made it pretty clear that they're committed to shooting themselves in the foot by continuing Lockout 2.0. The offer that they made to the players a few weeks ago had plans for a full 82-game season starting on Nov. 2, but the players rejected it, and the owners rejected all three of their counteroffers. As a result, the owners pulled the original proposal off the table, essentially bringing us back to square one. It also means an 82-game season is going to be virtually impossible.
In response to their self-imposed deadline of Oct. 26 not being met, Mr. Lockout cancelled all games for November. The All-Star Game and Winter Classic are still up in the air, but it looks like there's no way they'll be able to salvage those two events. So, after the record revenues that have been brought in since the 2004-05 lockout, the owners are voluntarily knocking two months of games off the schedule, as well as probably the league's two marquee events. (I also found it a bit ridiculous that Mr. Commissioner showed up a the press conference announcing the Islanders' move to Brooklyn, something predicted on this blog a few months ago, without addressing the complete hypocricy of the fact that there are currently no games to be played. Not on Long Island. Not in Brooklyn. Not anywhere else.)
However, I still believe there's going to be some sort of abbreviated NHL season this year. The owners can't possibly be stupid enough to cancel the season twice in eight years, can they? Anyway, the length of any abbreviated season will really depend on when a deal is reached and how soon they'd realistically be able to start once they get to that point. (Keep in mind, a lot of players are currently playing in Europe.)
When they played a shortened season due to a lockout in 1995, it was 48 games, just over half of a normal season. Then they had a full playoffs. That proved to be way too few games. If you've got half the teams in each conference going to the playoffs, you need those extra games for the better teams to separate themselves from the also-rans. Sure, even with an 82-game schedule you get the lower-seeded team that gets hot and makes a Stanley Cup run (like the reigning champion Kings), but you don't get good teams left out of the playoffs, either. It's entirely possible that would happen in a shorter season.
I think the NHL needs to look towards the NBA for how to set up its condensed schedule. I'm amazed that the NBA managed to lose only 16 games per team last season, and most people who actually care agreed that the 66-game schedule might've even worked out better. You can't ultra-condense it that same way in hockey, where the physical toll is too much to play three straight nights or some of the other crazy stuff the NBA did last year, but that's still a good number to shoot for. And one that's doable depending on when the NHL season actually begins.
Again, it all depends on when they start, but the simplest thing for the NHL to do might be to shoot for a 64-game schedule. That can be achieved without having to adjust each team's schedule too drastically. Under the league's current schedule format, each team plays 64 intraconference games and 18 interconference games. All that would change for them to play a 64-game season would be the elimination of those interconference games. (Since Red Wings-Maple Leafs is interconference, there would be no Winter Classic under this scenario.)
64 games (six against each team in your division, four against the other 10 in your conference) seems to be the easiest schedule. But that would probably only work if the season starts sometime in December. If the lockout stretches into 2013, they'd have to chop even more games off the schedule. That's what happened in 1994-95, which is why they played 48 games. Again, I think that's too few, but it's also the minimum the NHL would be able to get away with.
Should the lockout extend into January, there are two numbers that are realistic: 50 and 54. How'd I come up with those numbers? I got 54 by simply dropping the games other the other divisions in your conference from four to three, while 50 is dropping those 10, plus one against each of your four division opponents. If they want to save the Winter Classic, I can also see some sort of unbalanced option with a home-and-home against a team from the other conference, but in order to preserve the integrity of the regular season, that's probably not too feasible. It also wouldn't be practical for travel reasons, so I don't recommend having any interconference games.
They'd have to start in early January to get 54 games in, while a 50-game schedule would give them another week or two to play with, meaning that mid-January is the latest the NHL would be able to start in order to have any sort of a meaningful regular season. For the sake of everyone, I hope they're able to salvage at least that much.
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