The Vegas fans have plenty of distractions and they will not stew over suck-ass hockey when they step out of the arena, it's 90 degrees and the strip club down the road beckons. There is no time for the fans to get upset.
The question is, who exactly will these so-called 'fans' be??? Are there any true hockey fans who live in Las Vegas?? My guess is that most of the people attending the games won't be Las Vegas hockey fans at all, but mostly thousands of visitors to Las Vegas who will be both high-rollers and hockey fans from the visiting teams. I doubt they'll want to see a crappy product on the ice. They'll either stay home or stay at the casinos instead of going out to watch a crappy hockey game featuring a crappy young team against an experienced group of highly-skilled players.
The key is for the team to be competitive in order to maintain interest. For one, i'd love to attend a Leafs game in Vegas one of these days in the near future. However, i won't have much of an interest if the team only wins 10 games a year and gets blown away on most nights when the outcome of the game is pretty much determined in advance.
The plan you're suggesting is a good plan for an established market. But it won't work in a new market or one that is already struggling (e.g. Carolina, Florida) to maintain a fan base. If the long-term rebuilding plan is adopted in a new market (which is 100% not a hockey market) such as Las Vegas, fans from all across North America will attend during the first year or two, but the arena will be empty by the time the team is competitive.
That's why the Florida Panthers was successful in the early years and even went to the Stanley Cup final very early in its inception. Good, quality veteran players had been made available to them (and Tampa Bay) and Florida stacked the team with those types of players which led them all the way to the Stanley Cup finals, led by coach Doug McLean. Remember the rats that fans started throwing onto the ice after the Panthers would score a goal?? It was a total frenzy!!!
Sure, it's now a struggling market and the local fans are staying way. But i'd say that the main reason for this is that Florida simply is not and will never be an ice hockey market. The arena is also quite a distance from the downtown area. It's actually closer to Fort Lauderdale (the arena is located in Sunrise) than it is to Miami. I was there last year at springtime (the habs were in town also) and i couldn't see myself driving all the way there just to watch a hockey game. The drive there didn't bother me as much as the drive back after the game. Were i ever to attend a game there, i'd probably book a stay at a nearby hotel and take a cab there.