I can understand where you're coming from, but as someone who has played his whole life, for me, it's one of the most beautiful things in sports to watch. The skill level is the ability in those games to keep going for 60, 80, 100 minutes. Finding openings to put it on net (much harder than you'd expect), and the physical ballet that goes on in front of the net. It's similar to a basketball game where the 1st team to 100 wins, or a football game where every point is going to be so important because the game is such a dog fight. I prefer those games to track meets where teams score at will and that's what you get wirh playoff hockey in almost every game.