Here we go again…..Kevyn

[Thorny]

21 minutes ago, Taro T said:

Pretty sure they didn't consider teams to officially be in the playoffs unless they made it to the round of 16.  Could be misremembering as the Sabres were one of the unwashed and unloved that year so didn't follow the bubble tourney that much.

They did in fact count all the berths as official playoff berths 

“On May 28, the NHL stated that both the round-robin and the qualifying round were to be counted under playoff records, on the same day that the league declared the winners of the stats-based regular season NHL awards.[7]”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Stanley_Cup_playoffs