I was going to do this whole write up on my impressions but I'll condense it. (it's still long, I know)
Firstly, the kids are all-in view-showing some degree of progression in their respective games but still have issues to work out/work on (actually, two exceptions, I feel like McTavish and Zegras are regressing). The one issue I kept coming back to on every single one of our 23 and unders was puck management under pressure. And if your really think about it, the entire team-top to bottom-struggles with this. Even Terry who has been the most effective at penetrating defenses and making plays that advance play under pressure. All of our veterans suffer from the same flaw that is common among our youth.
Again, that comes down to game preparation and systems. I don't think it's enough to say it's a personnel issue. The thing that struck me about the Rangers game is a bit different from what Midnight Burrito observed. Yes defensively we let the Rangers play full on 1980s Soviet hockey and this team has had glaring defensive problems considering they have such a defense first coach. But in terms of the fact that Anaheim was actually able to generate offensive chances and look capable at executing basic and advanced passing plays, what I noticed was something I didn't want to say after a relatively positive performance: the Rangers didn't really pressure the Ducks defensively all that much. They got up in lanes, sure, but they allowed the Ducks more time and space than they usually get to make passes under less pressure. It seemed to me almost like the Rags didn't consider the Ducks much of a scoring threat so they were more concerned with what they were going to do on their eventual counterattack.
Every other team they've played, including the Sharks, have clued into how easy it is to make this team fundamentally unravel and it's just have a defending player get up in the face of a puck carrier and the possessing Duck player is 75+% likely to do something stupid with the puck, or start the dump and chase without guys in place to recover.
The Rangers game proved the team knows how to pass the puck. Every other game including the Rangers game proved that they are not drilling passing under pressure properly, and the systems in place are not conducive to puck receptions in transition, effective zone entries, or 5 man puck movement with an offensive zone set up either on the powerplay or 5 on 5. Most of our chance generation happens fresh off the rush.
Teams like Chicago and Columbus, with new youth cores of their own, have seen improvements in this respect while the Ducks are just getting worse with the puck on their stick.
Yes, the vet core-Killorn in particular-is suboptimal, but the team really should be playing more competent hockey than they are. And after this many games, I think it's fairly obvious that this coaching staff is not effective. And considering they're at the front line of developing these kids to teach them good habits conducive to winning hockey? I shudder to wonder how much longer we're going to waste prime development time with an inept coaching staff and how much damage that will cause to the youth core.
