Just over half the teams in hockey make the playoffs (16). This means that instead of a 'wild-card week' (aka a 'battle of the barely made-its'), a low-seeded team has to prove itself by facing a high-seeded team. In the same vein, the top-seeded teams don't get any 'bye weeks' to sit on their asses. There's the potential of huge upsets right from the start. So you get a normal 4-round playoff structure, only with more games and less dick-around time. Rock on.

A biased view, perhaps, but I love hockey playoffs :P.