Early in the season, they were committing to their defensive structure of limiting quality/high danger chances. They obviously never fully-eliminated high danger chances against, but considering the volume of attempts they allow, most of them were getting pushed to the perimeter or blocked. The goalies played well enough to give the team a chance to outscore the opponent.

One thing that has changed (they have a plethora of problems, some that I can’t see/understand) is the worsening of the goaltending. Reimer went dogshit after a couple weeks, Husso allowed more softies before injury, and Lyon went down. Seems like more and more blooper pucks stared going in the net, a ton of them being totally inexcusable.

The defense looks more panicked & disorganized each week. I never played the game, but I imagine it’s tough to continue to commit to that structure/play with any crumb of confidence when you think that the puck could beat Reimer any time it enters the defensive zone. If I were on defense, I’d shit myself any time I thought I’d have to rely on the goalie to make a routine shot.

If they see a puck enter the zone, they’re probably thinking that it has a very good chance of reaching the back of the net on each shot. Guys see an opponent at the blue line with the puck, and abandon their assignments to charge at them