Effort has been an issue with this team since the Red era began. Alzner famously proclaimed that the locker room had a hard time getting up for bad teams. They’ve had long stretches of malaise and shitty play dating back to Bruce. Some of those stretches are worse than others and this is a tough one right now.
The big issue is that the top guys are all playing like dogshit. Backstrom’s game has been flat out embarrassing. Kuznetsov is warm butter soft and a total liability most of the time. Carlson is lost in front of his own net. Ovechkin has been a total non factor. The only forwards pulling their weight are Oshie, the third line, and Hathaway and it’s killing the defense. When your top six can’t break the puck out or sustain a forecheck you’re gonna have a bad time.
Again, not absolving Rierden. I’m just pointing out that these stretches are not unique to him nor do I think all, or even most, of their struggles are systematic. If you put this all on Rierden, who gets the credit for how they played the first half of the season?