More ice yes makes the speed go up even more which then makes it even more entertaining, but it also gives the players a lot more time to react to situations then in a crowded situation which is just asking for trouble. Overtime is a prime example of the league tinkering with the rules to generate more scoring with more open ice, not sure how you haven't see this yet.... How many players are being injured in overtime when it's 3 on 3, all that open ice for it to speed up hasn't created more injuries.
The issue is they need more ice, and they need more ice without changing the amount of players on the ice, it needs to stay 5 on 5. If they want to keep hitting in the game they need to give the players more time to react to protect themselves. The longer it stays the way it is, the worse it's going to get for injuries, unless they remove hitting completely from the game and imo that will just ruin the sport completely if they do that. To avoid doing that, changing rules after rules, changing the amount of players on the ice to generate more scoring, just make the ice bigger already, it's honestly the best for the game going forward, for entertainment value, safety value, and even help the referees to make the right call.
The game is to crowded right now and it's just going to get worse as players keep evolving into faster and better players, like for instance Hoglanders move behind the net lacrosse style goal, you'd probably be able to see him do that a couple times this year if the ice was bigger, but since it's not it's over crowded he doesn't have the time to try and pull that off, that's just one example of what we are being limited to see. With all these young talents coming into the game we probably could be seeing some very impressive moves out there, if they had more ice to try these things, but because they don't have the ice and time to try these we can't see them, and that's the entertainment side of it.
This is an issue I've been arguing about since 2011 when Crosby was blindsided and was given his concussion, even since that one incident I've been on board for bigger ice and will continue to be on board with it until it's actually done, one day it will but until then I will continue to say they need bigger ice.