I don't want to defend Darling as I have no idea if he can get better--but has anyone watched tapes or remember games he played in Chicago? Did he have the gaping 5 hole there? and constantly out of position.
He was so bad at fundamentals last year its hard to believe being in better shape is the answer. (or even confidence).
If he used to be fundamentally sound, maybe he can get back there....
I think a lot of the problem Darling encountered here was a fundamentally different approach to what was going on in front of him than he had experienced in Chicago.
From what I have read, Chicago asks their goalies to stop the initial shot (and yes there were some problems with that) but then has the D-men cleaning up the crease and/or preventing rebound chances. Goalie is not really responsible for those.
Well, as we know, we didn't really do that under Peters' system. Instead, the D-men were just as likely to be in the corners or along the wall looking for a break-out pass from the goalie acting more like a third D-man (as Cam was want to do). And Darling was not so good with that puck-handling and/or stopping rebound chances.
Plus some of those initial shots were odd-man breakaways due to the tight-gap near-perfection defensive system being employed that once the opposing offensive player was lost was all on the goalie to stop.
Maybe we don't do so much of that going forward. We'll see.
We certainly have two different style goalies now. Mrazek aggressively challenges shooters, leaving him more than a bit exposed if he misses, whereas Darling tends to retreat back into the crease when attacked.
Going to be interesting to see how goalie coach Mike Bales deals with the two of them.
Heard someone on NHL Radio crediting Bales with reviving Fleury's game by teaching finding the post and working outward from that. Could be a good technique for both goalies to resurrect their past season's woes.