NHL Playoffs, Where A Team 6 Games Under .500 Is a 3rd Seed

So I made it through 82 regular season hockey games.  I learned a lot of stuff thanks to commenters, Twitterers and Facebookers.  I figured out that SOB trapeziod, overtime points, and those oh-so annoying lower body injuries.  But just when I thought I figured everything out, the playoffs arrive.

This season the Florida Panthers won 38 games.  Because there are 82 games in a season, I can reasonably deduct that they lost 44 games.  38 wins and 44 losses.  38 wins and 44 losses.  I say it over and over again and I still can't comprehend what happened.

In the NFL (2010) the Seattle Seahawks won 7 games and lost 9 games.  They not only made the playoffs with the 8th best record in the conference (6 teams make playoffs), but they also had a first round home playoff game.  Crazy.

Every now and then a team or 2 in the NBA Eastern Conference make the playoffs under .500 while teams in the Western Conference with better records are left out.

And this season, my first watching the NHL, the Florida Panthers were a 3rd seed in the playoffs at 6 games below .500.  Some of this has to do with the fact that you are rewarded for losing in OT (still annoys me).  The Panthers racked up a league leading 18 of them.  18 points for 18 losses.

All 15 other teams in the playoffs had more wins than the Panthers and even one team that didn't make the playoffs.

No matter what way you look at it, the playoffs in each sport aren't perfect.  But the fact that the Panthers are a 3rd seed because of Overtime Wins and non-playoff reseeding seems just completely wrong.