It's a snowball effect caused by black and white 1's and 0's which the cpu can't deviate from - the one AI completely giving up forced the human to aggressively attack the puck which forced the two AI on the side to cover the "neglected" zones and completely abandon the play
We've been playing with a severely outdated system for years now. I completely understand how awful it'd be to program, but the AI players need some ability to look a few moments ahead. Anticipation on turnovers, crossovers, and breakouts should, in theory, alleviate most problems players are having.