ESPN is not stupid, they wanted to buy the NHL TV rights for pennies and the NHL sold it for a few bucks to VS, which was an awful decision IMO because ESPN would have generated much more interest in it, if it owned the rights to it, and by the next contract the NHL would have been worth a lot more
Don't just make up stuff for the sake of posting.
ESPN's offer 4 years ago was to carry the games for free in exchange for a cut of revenues (ads). The NHL (like every other league) is slowly building their own TV network and will license out the broadcasts as it deems worthy. Versus has the potential to be a pretty decent channel in fact.
ESPN was very specific after the lockout they did not want hockey anymore. It wasn't a matter of "pennies" - it was "we'd rather carry spelling bee's and strong man competitions". ESPN is aware that the NHL is a league with regional appeal, and the ratings on local foxsports affiliates proves that its very viable regionally, but nationally is not strong at all (have you checked Saturday national MLB ratings lately???)
If you missed the playoffs, you missed some average games, some amazingly exciting games. and some absolutely epic games. Chances are if you didn't realize the playoffs were on though, that you wouldn't be able to tell the 3 apart, so it really doesn't matter anyway does it?