Well you have no real way of saying that for sure.
I'm not going to speak for everyone but for me, I'll start by talking about what appeared to be positive improvements.
First and foremost, Lacombe broke out in the midst of an overall bad season. I don't know how much I can credit the coaching staff over how much came from him as an individual. Obviously something clicked for him and the confidence he plays the game with now lets him play like he's the second coming of Scott Niedermeyer. Is that an accumulation of lessons being taught to him by the coaching and dev staff? Given the "defense first" imperative this team was running, I really kind of doubt it. But no question it's something we can go into next season comfortable that it will continue.
The goalies played much better this year up until the past month and a half where they appear to be worn out and less focused. But that's all credit to our goalie coaching staff and no one in the modern history of this team has ever complained about the goalie coaching. Maybe ever. Either way, Dostal should be a stud next year. The question is, how overworked will he be considering that this team did not really improve defensively this year?
Mac finally improved from where he was at last year. I'll debate anyone on it, but the first half of the season he was demonstrating what looked like poor hockey IQ but given how he's been playing lately, I'd probably say it was a lack of focus and maybe even motivation. But he was not playing well and was regressing statistically and in his performance. Since the third liner comment he's cleaned his game up and looks to be one of our more consistently dangerous forwards. But as a third overall pick and top prospect this should have happened this year regardless. How much more he can improve from here is still in question.
Leo had a big surge in his play after the Four Nations but we can't ignore how big a chunk of the season he played in an utter slump. It was honestly most of the first half. Say what you want about it needing to come from the individual but that's half a season of Leo's development years it seems the team did little to help him improve. I'm not even convinced Cronin had much to do with Leo's surge after the 4N the way Cronin talked about it. It seems it's a combination of the tournament getting Leo out of his mental funk and Leo deciding independently that he'd shoot the puck more. He still has a lot of work to do to grow the dynamism of his game but I'm concerned with Cronin's comments that seem to indicate that Cronin is forcing Leo to play a net crasher first and foremost which to me, is a waste of Leo's natural playmaking gifts. So I still have concerns that we aren't going to optimize his development. I will credit Cronin' s "defense first defense only" development/coaching philosophy for helping develop Leo's defense to a high level.
Cutter has gotten much better from where he was when he first started the season but a lot of it really comes down to simplifying his game and thinking/evaluating the situation on the ice more before quick twitch forcing plays. This really felt like an inevitability more than something the coaching staff guided him towards. We all think he can be a top line 40 goal scorer one day. Will this coaching staff develop him properly enough to get there? We'll see. Taking Gauthier off the powerplay for the last 7 or so games is entirely counterintuitive if we're trying to develop him to become that player.
Helleson is a pleasant surprise as a prospect because really no one penciled him in as a guy who might have a good future with this team. But because his game is really not all that different from how he looked his first week with the team, I think more credit belongs to San Diego than anyone on the NHL coaching staff.
Same goes for Colangelo. After two tries with the big club Colangelo had come up and looks like a guy with top 6 potential who can slot in to play on a third scoring line. His play on this last call up unlocked a viable option on Mac's wing in place of Gauthier and he looks to figure in long term as part of the youth core. At this point he's clearly better as a depth option than guys like Leason, Johnston, Lundestrom, Fabbri, etc. But I don't think you can credit Cronin or his team for any of that.
Same for Nesterenko. He's been a pleasant surprise on his most recent call up at least for me as his training camp showing had me doubting he could ever stick in the NHL. Now I'd be fine with him replacing, say Leason, entirely. But again that's all credit to San Diego.
I'll give credit to Killorn before I rip into the rest of the vets that while he's still a tremendously flawed player when it comes to puck management when it comes to being part of offensive flow plays (e.g. Making correct plays that look to the team connecting on more than two consecutive passes), his forechecking and man coverage is strong enough that he has been a help to the PK and the general offensive possession of his lines 5 on 5. It's when he has to distribute pucks at 5 on 5 that we see the problems with him dumping the puck mindlessly when none of his teammates are positioned to chase after it (my eyes almost rolled back into my stomach in a recent game where he was on a rush and had Cutter breaking with no one marking him, instead of passing it to Cutter for a potential breakaway he dumped it into the same corner in Cutter's path and it was an instant possession change) or passing the puck right to the other team. It still happens a lot and I've honestly been exhausted with the select few here who either don't notice or pretend it's not happening. Either way he's already at retirement age at this point and his game is due for regression.
In general the team has gotten better at rushing the puck through transition but a lot of this comes from guys who are just naturally good at it. Leo, Cutter, Lacombe, Terry, Zegras (at times), Zellweger. The team struggles offensively in almost all other respects.
It does seem that in the back half of the season, the players seem more likely to stick up for each other when opponents cross the line.
Now into what still sucks or at least needs a good amount of improvement.
The veterans almost uniformly have been meh to awful. The Terry line has been incredibly weak since the Four Nations with Vatrano being the worst offender.But I'll give them credit that at times in the first half of the season they were our only good line. Trouba had a good first few weeks with the team. But since then, he's shown why fans around the league call him a defensive liability. Gudas by all accounts seems good for team camaraderie but his defensive play and puck movement has been a level above awful the past 30 or so games. I wouldn't strip him if the captaincy just yet but maybe in a season or two when the team can justify giving it to a younger player, I think it needs to happen. He is not a guy leading by example on the ice. These are the veterans that are supposed to be leading this team with their experience but at least the past 20 or so games it's been the kids who have been dragging tired looking vets playing shitty hockey along. That's not ideal going into next year where we're hopefully going to finally make a serious push for a playoff spot. Harkins is a commendable forechecker but otherwise a bad hockey player overall and should be replaced. Lundestrom is fine as a fourth liner but it is replacement level. Leason is upgradeable. Fabbri is fast and a solid forechecker but he's really not consistent at 5 on 5 offense and is replaceable. Johnston is useless as a hockey player and equally useless as an enforcer as much as Dirk wants to pretend otherwise. He should be gone.
The 5 on 5 offense still utterly lacks in structure and strategy in all situations past rush offense. Considering that beyond the declared focus on "defense first" Cronin has lamented he wants the team to be more of a possession team as opposed to relying on rush offense (which is virtually the team's only "strength" when it comes to offense) I really don't think we've seen that translate into results so it begs the question, what is he doing in drills to make that vision for the team a reality? Offensive production has seen an improvement, but we're still bottom third in goals and expected goals for. And the improvement is largely tied to the team's PDO skyrocketing to 8th in the league. We're still near the bottom of the league in total shots on goal for.
And a big talking point for a chunk of the season was offense at the expense of the team's focus on defense. The defense still hasn't materially improved. We still have the second most shots on goal against, behind Chicago by about 31 shots against, after today we can easily tie them. We lead the league in expected goals against by a fair margin (2.93 with San Jose the next worst at 2.86, Chicago by comparison is fourth worst at 2.74) while we have the second best goals against above expected rating behind Winnipeg who has the likely Vezina winner. This indicates that the tale of the tape for the season is our goalies have been shelled and they've been routinely keeping us from getting blown out. If that wasn't enough, we give up the fifth most high danger shots against, the most medium danger shots against by a staggering amount (543, the next most is Chicago with 509 and they have a game in hand. By way of example that's a wider margin than you see between Chicago and Buffalo who gives up the 9th most MDS). We also have the fourth most shots blocked which only compounds the picture of how many shots they're letting their opponents take.
Zegras has been playing better. But his production is only back on track to the kind of production we saw from him as a rookie and as a sophomore. His overall game has improved but his offense for a long time appeared to be totally choked out by Cronin. The hope was that by now we'd see him further along as, hopefully, an offensive star for this team where they only, arguably, have one in Terry but honestly at 52 points this deep in the season in a time where scoring is up, calling Terry a star is a stretch.
Zellweger hasn't really improved all that much this year. Yeah he had a couple goals recently but for not being a reliable defensive presence you'd really want to see more than 19 points on the year. Considering how offensively inept the team has been all year you can say his production suffered, but even if you generously prorated his production for a more productive team he's probably still a 27-35 point player.
Mintyukov has started to play better the past month or so but he's still way far off where we thought he'd be based off the early days of his career. Most of the time since, he plays like he's terrified of making mistakes and this applies in all three zones. It probably hasn't helped that both he and Zellweger have spent so much time this year healthy scratched. Mintyukov in particular has first pair potential even elite #1 potential but he's so far off from that point even with his play picking up that I have serious concerns about this team's ability to foster his development to maximize his potential.
In terms of fitness and conditioning, this team had an all too common problem that for all but one game, Anaheim would play teams on the back end of back to backs and look like the more exhausted team.
I don't need to beat the rotting corpse that is the powerplay again.
So.
TL;DR
It's too black and white to say I'm disappointed with the season, since I can't speak for how everyone else is feeling. There were some positive developments this year to be sure. The kids got more experience and for some that led to growth. Others remained stagnant. Another like Dostal started the season playing elite but has clearly burned out after sharing a goaltending load that saw him facing almost the most shots against in the league. My concern and disappointment comes more from the lack of development of the team's structure, fundamentals, and systems which appear largely unchanged from last year. I'm concerned that the powerplay ineptitude and momentum killing is still a crime against humanity. I'm concerned that the veterans all seem to play like they can't wait for their vacation. I'm concerned that someone like Zegras can have an on bench meltdown over a lineup deployment decision after all the off ice comments against Cronin from former and current players. I'm concerned that while a certain level of growth through experience is inevitable with these kids, that under this coach's guidance, practice drilling, systems and strategies, our youth core could be hindered from reaching the upper limits of their potential. My hope has been that we use this development time wisely. The majority of the fruits of this 'rebuild through the draft' period are with the team now. Sennecke, Luneau, and Solberg are our blue chippers still on the outside. My worry is that if we're not using development time wisely our attempted exit from the rebuild might be a little less Pittsburgh, Chicago, Tampa, LA, even the current Oilers and a lot more akin to Buffalo, Utah/Arizona, or Calgary. I haven't seen enough from these development years to be confident that we're going to avoid the latter outcome and prevent a recycled rebuild. So it's less about being disappointed by the minor improvements we've seen this year and more about being concerned about next year and beyond with the way things have been going.
You may be fine taking the wait and see "give the guy a chance" approach. I'm not. This team has inherent challenges in convincing UFAs to come over. They either build properly out of the draft or they get stuck in a perpetual rebuild and no fan wants that.
