The NHL sacrificed last season for this one.

Asked whether it was worth it, commissioner Gary Bettman didn't hesitate. "We simply had no choice," he said Tuesday.

If this were strictly an end-justifies-the-means exercise, the boss would have plenty of reasons to smile. With one notable exception, everything about the sport he runs is better this spring than when it last appeared in 2004. Data from the just-completed regular season shows revenues are up, attendance figures hit record levels and the product on the ice has rarely looked better.

Unshackled by rules changes that let referees get rid of wholesale hooking, holding, clutching or grabbing, teams averaged a shade better than six goals a game — a goal more than the 2003-04 season, and the biggest increase in scoring in 75 years. Fighting, meanwhile, fell by 41 percent from the same period. The number of lead changes, perhaps the best indicator that wide-open play continued from start to finish, increased exponentially. Shootouts freed up players to display the kind of individual wizardry that became nightly highlight staples on "SportsCenter."

But the improvement wasn't just about numbers. A handful of reinvigorated veterans, led by Jaromir Jagr of the Rangers and a rookie class topped by Alexander Ovechkin in Washington and Sidney Crosby in Pittsburgh, hockey's version of a budding Magic-vs.-Bird rivalry, made the retirement of popular warhorses like Mark Messier and Brett Hull easier to take. But in case Bettman needed humbling, there's that nagging exception:

Too few people still tune in to watch hockey on TV.

"We have the best in-arena experience in pro sports," he said in a familiar tone. "We just have to find a way to market that."

If there has been a recurring theme to Bettman's stewardship, other than his ambitious gambles to put hockey on an equal footing with the other major team sports, that's been it. The "in-arena" experience the commissioner never fails to mention remains both hockey's greatest strength and its greatest weakness.

The NHL plays its games in buildings often filled to capacity. That much hasn't changed, despite dire predictions that being the first pro league to cancel an entire season would drive fans away the way baseball's strike a dozen seasons ago had. In Pittsburgh, for example where the Penguins to their fourth straight losing season in an outdated arena, the number was 94 percent.

But what hasn't changed, either, is the formula that suggests supply meets demand just outside the doors of those same arenas. The TV audience for the new-and-improved NHL is no better than it was for the old one. Having moved most of its television package from ESPN2 to OLN, the league averaged a meager 0.2 rating, or roughly 165,000 viewers, most nights.

"It's a work in progress, we won't deny that," Bettman said. "The key is to keep telling our stories and make sure the game on the ice is as vibrant as it can be."

Bettman can take a deep breath and some pride in what he's accomplished. Hockey is about as good a game as it can be at the moment, significantly better than even the most optimistic boosters had a right to expect after a hiatus that should have driven away its most loyal supporters. What should keep the commissioner awake most nights now is this: What happens next if that turns out not to be enough?

Jim Litke is a columnist for The Associated Press.