Yeah, I think that's right. OEL seems fine in transition and Myers in the offensive zone but together they are a below average second pairing for generating offence. Add zero offence from the third pairing to that and the team revolves around Hughes.
I've mentioned before that when you look at last season, this was a tale of two teams: under Green, the team gave up any pretence of offence to be a good defensive team at even strength, which led them to be a middle of the pack defensive team and a bottom-end offensive team, whereas under Boudreau their defence dropped a bit but their offence shot right up. I'm not going to pretend to be a systems expert, but the results they have gotten so far this year look basically the same as Green's, and the team seems to be playing more in that direction when I watch them.
Rutherford commented several times this offseason about playing with more structure in the defensive zone, and I'm curious if this is the result of the coaching staff trying to do that.
The model seems to be Rutherford's Cup winning Hurricanes team (great goalie, deep forwards, defence by committee) but I'm not sure this team has the horsepower up front in terms of players who can create zone entries/rush offence that team had. Getting Mikheyev back should help.