I read it differently, no matter how well we play all season, it’s all about the playoffs for some right from opening game.
It's complicated.
A season of 82 games has a lot of boring games which may not have any implication on the standings, home ice or other numerical things, but every game is still an opportunity to be great and do special things, which one hopes the team embraces more often than not...
Over the course of a season, those games are a runway to the playoffs, which is indeed what it's all about when it comes to judging whether the season was successful or not. But you don't want to see a team half ass it only to promise to turn it on when it really matters. How do you know the switch works?