Anglesmith
Setting up the play?
Because we were bleeding high quality scoring chances nightly and would often spend periods hemmed in our own zone because there was 0 element of possession. Hartley is one side of the spectrum and Gulutzan is the other extreme. Ideally, we wouldn't have gotten slower after firing Hartley and we would've found someone closer to his end on the spectrum that had instilled more discipline in play
The differences between 2014-15 and 2015-16 were extreme, though. What you're describing was the year he was fired- 2015-16. Not sure if that was the personnel tuning him out or what.
2014-15 was exactly what the Rangers are doing to us tonight. With a relatively weak roster, they didn't allow quality chances. Just like tonight, the shots would say one thing, the "scoring chances" would say one thing, but the odd-man rushes would be tilted the other way, and more times than not, we'd get the better chances and win. The games we lost would also look like this one, except a bunch of those low-quality shots from the outside would somehow Anaheim Ducks their way into the net and we'd be behind the eight-ball.
But yeah, the Hartley system was designed to suppress high quality scoring chances at all costs. It was successful one year and then a failure the next year, and roster can't explain that.