Yeah. I think this change would only make sense if it goes hand in hand with inventing a draft lottery instead of auto-assigning the first pick to the team finishing last.
You might aswell change the format as following:
playdowns:
5th vs 6th (interdiv, crossover)
winners stay in (automatically leads to "one week more salaries btw)
and then losers of 5th vs 6th plays a three game series against the 7th of the (crossover to 5th placed) group
so 5th places still can relegate, 8th places are down nevertheless, and you have "solved" several problems at once (and 7th place is a bad spot to count on, you lose tuesdays game and you better finish 6th).
Zwei Dinge sind unendlich, die Dummheit und das All...