I'm of the opinion that our lack of elite skill is more of an issue on the PP than anything. Aho is our most skilled guy, but what is his most elite skill? His hockey sense IMO. He's a very good skater as well, but that skill gets neutralized in a PP when you've set up in the zone. He's a good playmaker and good shooter, but I wouldn't call him elite in those areas.
Our ability to outwork teams, out skate teams, our depth and the ability to play all 200 feet makes us a better 5v5 team.
Look at the top PP teams in the playoffs.
EDM: McDavid and Draisaitl
COL: MacKinnion, Rantanen, Makar
NYR: Fox, Panarin. Kreider is an elite net front guy also. Zib has a 1 timer better than any Cane as well.
DAL: Heiskenen, (with a lot of size, depth and scoring at forward like Hintz, Robertson, Duchene, Benn, Seguin, Pavelski, Wyatt Johnston, Marchment)
We don't have a PP QB like Heiskenen, Makar or Fox. We don't have a high end skill guy like McDavid, MacKinon, Panarin, or Draisaitl. Or a net front guy like Kreider. Dallas is probably the closest skill wise, but on top of having Heiskanen, they have a lot of scorers and a lot of guys that are good in front of the net.
In the regular season, we can outwork teams, even on the PP. In the playoffs, it's much harder to outwork teams. I had hoped that Guentzel and Kuznetsov could be difference makers in that regard come playoff time. For whatever reason, that didn't happen.
Also, as Joe said, the team was 25-32 on face-offs on the PP, so won about 43% of them. Aho was 14-12 in face-offs on the PP. Kuznetsov was 3-14.
Other than mixing up the personnel (ie..trying out better net front guys on different PP units, having someone else take a face-off instead of Kuzy, etc...), I'm not sure what else could be done. The coaches were telling the players to get to the net and move, much of the time, they weren't.