The current NHL model doesn't work well simply because they have 30 teams in the league but only about 8-9 good hockey markets. I define a "good hockey market" as a city where the team could probably fill 90% of the seats in their arena in the last week of the season even if they're out of playoff contention. These markets would be the Original Six teams, plus Edmonton, Philadelphia and maybe Buffalo. Winning doesn't guarantee a fan base at all -- as evidenced by the difficulties faced by the New Jersey Devils in the late 1990s and early 2000s even as they were one of the most successful franchises in all of North American sports on the ice. I can pretty much guarantee you that Nashville will go down the same road once the novelty of their success fades. Heck -- the team was a candidate for acquisition and a potential relocation to Hamilton or Kansas City as recently as ten years ago, and it was only awarded an expansion franchise in the first place in the late 1990s because it was the only city among the contenders (Columbus, the Twin Cities and Atlanta were the others) that had a new arena in place to accommodate the team.
I suspect hockey fans lose interest in their teams not because they lose, but because their favorite team loses its top talent to other teams. This is what happened to Edmonton in the early 1990s after every one of the stars from their dynasty of the previous decade was traded or signed away.
I think I read somewhere that the 2013 Stanley Cup finals between Chicago and Boston generated larger TV audiences in North America than the NBA finals that year, but the numbers don't show up in the ratings because Canadian networks aren't included in the U.S. TV ratings.
Except Edmonton had recently had a good chunk of the stadium closed because they’d been so bad for so long attendance was in the toilet. Doesn’t really matter how “traditional” a market is, eventually a team can use up that good will. Look at the Yankees, quality has been down for a while, attendance is dropping, they got a bump from Rivera’s farewell tour. They’re season off well, maybe they’ll right the ship. But goodwill ALWAYS fades with a bad product. Just look at the Jags, there’s hardly a more “traditional” football market than Florida and they’ve had a bunch of the stadium closed for over a decade. Bad team, bad attendance.
Nashville’s been sustaining success on and off the ice. If they keep it up they’ll build the loyalty. Just like any other team. San Jose has some of the most consistent attendance in the league, because they’ve been one of the most consistent teams. They’re over 500 pretty much all the time, they make the playoffs most years, they make the second round much of the time. They haven’t won a Cup yet, but if you’re a hockey fan in the San Jose area you know there’s at least one good team on the ice every home game. So attendance is good.