Look, you can hate the rule all you want. I get it, I do too. It's been exploited egregiously. But this isn't one of those cases.I think it needs to be cut and dry. No room for loop holes. No room for teams to take advantage of it. I think if you finish the season on LTIR you should be ineligible for the playoffs. If your team thinks you might be able to play come playoff time then they need to take you off LTIR before the season ends. You don't need to play in any games. But your team should need to be cap compliant to end the season.
The other scenario is that the Avs subtract from their roster at the deadline and create 7M in cap space to activate Landeskog. A realistic outcome of this is that Landeskog plays 10 games, and then realizes he can't go on. Now the Avs are left with 7M in dead cap space and a worse roster all because there was a chance Landeskog could suit up for a few games. That's the better route in your eyes? The rule literally exists for a scenario like this.
And it's not the LTIR rule you're mad at, it's the fact that teams don't have a salary cap come playoff time. That can be adjusted, and maybe it's a %. But instead of go into depth about all the possible contingencies the NHL just has a blanket rule that allows for maximum roster flexibility at the most important time of the year.