To enforce or not to enforce?

So here's the question: Which did you like better, the 5-4 opening game in the Stanley Cup Final or the 2-1 affairs we saw in Games 3 and 4?
It's not just a throwaway question. The debate is on in the NHL about what if any rules will be changed by the competition committee this off-season. There's a school of thinkers that loved that 5-4 game. Sure it was a bit sloppy, but it featured a lot of skating, a lot of scoring and a lot of penalty minutes that led to a lot of power plays including a number of five-on-three situations. It wasn't overly physical but then it's hard to hit what you can't catch. There were goals aplenty and the action was fast and furious right down to the final seconds of play.
Then there were Games 4 and 4 in which the refs let the physical side of the game shine. The scoring was down, but the hitting was ferocious and the tension regards which team would win (or even score the next goal) was very real. In many ways they were what the NHL playoff purists believe the game should be.
In that regard, there appears to be a split in the NHL. Commissioner Gary Bettman has been on the stump saying that things shouldn't change and while the Competition Committee would look at things, tinkering could be dangerous as the changes are all part of a package and if you fool with one part you will impact other parts.
Yet his Director of Hockey Operations, Colin Campbell has acknowledged that there was a concern about the lack of physical play at times during the season and it needs to be addressed. If you look closely in these playoffs it seems both styles have been on display, in part because of how the game is called.
This debate will get underway shortly. It should be noted that Buffalo Sabres coach Lindy Ruff, who was in on a lot of the meetings about the changes that came into play this season, sounded a warning bell after his team was ousted by Carolina in the Eastern Conference final. Ruff said, "People have said (there should be) more physical play down low. When I hear that I get scared that we're going to start the clutching and grabbing and hooking. From my front, I've said the players have had a lot of fun playing. The games were great, the fans loved them. We shouldn't be afraid of change, but the change should be on the exciting front and let's not step back and go in the other direction."
Yet it's safe to argue that teams like the Philadelphia Flyers would rather see their investment in burly defencemen pay off with more freedom for them to obstruct players driving to the net.
It seems as if this Final is a visualization of that debate.
Ottawa general manager John Muckler once told me that the NHL has a long history of taking the game down to the lower levels. He was the associate coach and later, the head coach when the Oilers were a dynasty and many times he would see the rules changed to defuse Edmonton's power. You could claim that the same thing happened to the dynasty teams of Montreal. Muckler's argument was that changes should be made so that game rises to the level of its best teams rather than the other way around.