It's a bit more complex than that.
Torts played a very conservative system, when Shaw opened it up they were a worse team, but also b/c Ersson imploded and they traded a lot of starters.
This year Tocchet plays a more aggressive system than Torts, but it starts with defense.
But when Briere only replaced Poehling, Frost and Laughton with Dvorak and Abols, he left them thin and vulnerable to injury. Foerster and Abols out, now Brink gone, you're playing Grundstrom, Glendening/Hathaway, and Bump and Barkey.
This is the downside of rebuilding, it takes time to restock the team. Between Hextall's bad picks and Fletcher trading an entire draft's worth of picks, Briere inherited an organization with an almost empty talent pipeline.
While he hasn't explicitly embraced tanking, Briere also encouraged Martone to spend a year in college instead of rushing him to the NHL, started Barkey and Bump at LHV, and didn't sign/trade for a bunch of veterans. He'd rather lose now than spend future assets, but he's not going to come out and say we don't have a chance to compete.
They are 4-3 since the break, but since Jan 10, 7-11-3, which has knocked them out of the PO race.
Vladar has 12 starts during that stretch, with a .889 Sv%. Clearly, he's starting to wear down.
Ersson 8 starts with .846 Sv%.
So just like last year, goalies spiral down, and take the team with them.
They're not talented enough to consistently come from behind, which they've done at a league leading rate, but also lead the league in giving up the first goal.
