What top line would you be referring to??? I agree Brock would have been the answer, but since he left it was the coaches job to find someone to fill his shoes. Too much line shuffling, ZERO Chemistry. Hak didn't give the lines any time. When you don't have consistent lines you don't develop any depth. Coaches fault their was no depth, they had a healthy team for the majority of the year and very few injuries.
You have got to be kidding about the defense playing well. How many times did they flub the puck or failed to go tape to tape on break out passes. When BOTH D men are skating back towards the red line, while WE are in puck possession in the offensive zone it's hard to sustain offensive zone pressure. I'm not talking pinching with a lead, clearly talking about maintaing the offensive zone, ya kinda need 5 players to do that, not 3. With 6 NHL draft pics they should have been better!!!! it's hard though when every line is changing game by game. As the season progresses that chemistry with the forward lines that needs to develop also helps the d men. The outlet passes and breakout passes and lanes are filled, which makes it easier to connect from D to F. It was pretty easy for Yale to break thru the neutral zone as well because of the disconnect with the D and Fs.
Watch the OT winner in the final 5 game. Two of our guys went to the same point man and no one took the guy with the puck who scored the goal. Clearly another example of not having that chemistry.
With the amount of draft pics we have and hobey finalists we should have faired better. Sorry fingers pointed at Hak and his staff. Hard to watch that much talent all season being shuffled around with ZERO results. Yeah they made plays and scored on great individual efforts with the talent they have, but I remember few goals that resulted from crisp tape to tape passing. Individual talent but NO team chemistry = fail.