Goalies were like the rest of the team : rusty and not ready to face the music (particularly Hogberg who was completely off on his angles). I don't know if you remember but Murray actually did really well the first 3 games but IIRC Stepan stupid delay of game penalty allowed the Jets to tie the game 3-3 and then win in OT (was it on a Chabot turnover?). Then the Sens went in a "suck spiral" for a while after that and were getting destroyed on the road.
The defensive coverage, the time and space given, the "free zone access" for rebounds and how easy it was to get in a good position to shoot... Just in the first series against Vancouver (could have posted even more), check these :
Miller caps pretty passing play
Recap: OTT 1, VAN 4
Pettersson buries rebound in 1st
Boeser's second goal of game
Yes, everyone was to blame, I'd say less for inexperienced players because they had no good veterans to shelter them (which was the intended goal in bringing so many vets)
I had "blamed" coaching as well but not sure how much because they had a lot of roster turnover and basically no training camp. Takes time to instill hockey systems and have all the players to buy in and execute it. They made bad personnel decisions though.
Another thing is while maybe the goalie coach change helped, it's not the only thing that helped Murray. The structure in front of him, the "team defense" improved a LOT by the time he came back from injury and that's why he was able to post .954 SV% in 5 games. Ask him privately and he will tell you that it was NIGHT and DAY compared to early in the season. He didn't go from the worst goalie to the best goalie just like that suddenly... As a goalie, that's my analysis anyway
So maybe I didn't read your post correctly but I had the impression you were mostly putting the blame on the goalies... This part in particular made me think that :
"
Not much a coach or a
defence can do when the goalies are letting beach balls into the net..."
So yes defense shouldn't be blamed for unprovoked bad goals but "team defense" was certainly the reason why we were bleeding so many goals against early in the season, like in these short videos above. In the NHL, you can't afford to gift wrap 3-4 goals per game, it almost always end up in blowouts. We had too many of that early in the season. Fortunately for us, everyone worked hard, the team made some much needed changes and they all turned things around