No, not easily. I looked at that, the spring simultaneously applies pressure to the drop target to push it slightly against a ridge to keep it up when it is up and then when knocked by the ball the spring then also pulls the target down. You would not be able to achieve the same affect with one spring, two maybe - but not one. To be fair the engineering they did on this must be very sound as it has lasted this long, and the targets are not too badly defaced (no exercise friction against the metal frame when they drop etc) - just the table was exposed to high humidity and corrosions has done its thing...
I should add this is the larger drop target, the smaller ones do use a traditional spring, but the bigger ones have more throw i think and therefore this method is used. I don't relay want to hack them about.