It's the defense for me, Vasy is making routine saves and some but defense isn't scrambling around and losing coverage like they were all of last season.. That poised play leads to a lot less randomness and odd plays that just ended up in the back of the net last year. Team feels like it's back in 2020-2022 form, last year felt like every team was capable of coming back from 2-3+ goals against us at any given time.
Right, but not being able to trust Vasy with even the most routine saves, Last year, made it feel like nothing else mattered. Although I think there have been a few signs that he's all the way back.
To me, McDonagh was always the key. To this day I believe trading him instead of a forward was a massive mistake. It's like every other piece of the D puzzle slots so much more easily when you can trust McDonagh (and Cernak).
But yeah, the entire feel of the games are different so far. Once we are in control, we are just in control.
This makes middle six shopping at the TDL much more reasonable.