The question is "Why bother with a play-in round" other than to give air time to some bigger markets?
- BINGO!

The purpose of the play in round is to compensate for the stoppage in the season and makes complete sense. There were 5 teams in the east and 6 in west who had a realistic shot at the wild cards. YES, Montreal shouldn't be included but the format works better.

So now you have a 24 team playoffs but it's not 24 teams it's 16 teams with 8 getting eliminated; but it's not the regular season because (frank) the bottom 7 teams.....