For draft picks conditional on teams "making the playoffs", what do you think counts as a team making the playoffs? Assuming they do the 24-team format, what if, for example, Vancouver loses their best-of-five ... in my opinion they could choose to keep their 1st round pick as they do not make the playoffs, but i'm curious to hear what you all think.

I think it should be if they make the top 16. At the time that's what they likely meant by make the playoffs. I also think that the teams ranked 17-24 should still be in the lottery. Essentially treat the play in games as the rest of the regular season and leave the "official playoffs" as 4 rounds 16 teams

Agreed.