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This is kind of like the first couple of years of Ye Olde Patrick Division in the early 1980s when the Islanders, Flyers, Caps and Rangers went through a pair of 80-game exercises merely to eliminate the Devils and the Penguins from the playoffs. In 1982-83, the margin between the fourth-place Blueshirts and fifth-place New Jersey was 32 points. The following year, it was 52 points. In other words, it was only and all about jockeying for tournament seeding.
Or maybe you want to go back a bit further, to the 1960s and the time of the Original Six, when in the four seasons from 1962-63 through 1965-66, the Canadiens, Maple Leafs, (then named) Black Hawks and Red Wings played 70 games a year for the privilege of eliminating the Rangers and Bruins. Over those four seasons, the fourth-place team held an average margin of 21.5 points over the fifth-place club. In other words, it was all about getting home-ice advantage.
By the way, the Original Six playoff structure was a strange one, indeed, under which the first- and third-place teams and second and fourth-place clubs hooked up in the first round/semifinals. In fact, it was not until 1972 that the NHL adopted a format under which the first seed met the fourth and the second played the third in the opening round.
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