The path to improvement was improving the goaltending. It's not that hard to find solid starting goaltending - Nonis did not have to give up much to grab Bernier, Reimer developed from within, and multiple solid goaltenders have been traded for very little in the last few years.
I really don't buy that goaltending was the only reason that those teams weren't good. SV% only tells part of the story IMO.
And if games didn't go to a shootout and there were just ties like there used to be, they would be 24-31-13.
So in games not decided by a shootout the Leafs are 24-31 (24 regulation/OT wins, 23 regulation losses + 8 OT losses). That doesn't strike me as a strong bet for the playoffs.
How would they have lost 8 more games and played 4 more games if there weren't shootouts? Those would be ties and OTL still existed. Regulation and OT losses would be the same, SO wins and SO losses would become ties.
Under the old system they'd be, 24-23-13-4 (W-L-T-OTL).
In games not decided by shootouts, they are 24-23-4. (W-L-OTL)
But we were comparing regular season to playoffs not current regular season rules to past rules, so I'm not sure why that is relevant.
My point was that games decided in OT have been close to equal for the Leafs so not having shootouts in the playoffs shouldn't be alarming as you suggested, we may have won those games if there was continuous OT.