@Codo37
Thanks for the video. I'm not seeing how your players are sluggish.
At the 32 second mark, you're on the PK. They aren't going to apply as much pressure. You also control a player out of position and cover the shooter instead. You're taking 77's position so they back off. You also comment about how your players are slower. They are on the PK so those players could have also been fatigued more.
You seem to be relying heavily on cross-crease one timers from up close. Taking that shot from farther back is going to be more successful at catching the goalie out of position.
You also should pass more. That's why your opponent is getting the puck from you easily. You don't use your defenders and seem to be forcing the puck through the neutral zone when you can pass back to an open defender and create open lanes for better offensive zone entry.
The missed one timer at 1:34 is most likely due to his stick having just passed through another player's leg a moment before. When this happens, you can't play the puck for a few moments.
The trip at 2:40 was caused by incidental contact so it's not going to cause a penalty.
Thye spiderman save at 2:55 was actually a deflection from the defender.
At 2:57, Leetch is reacting, but the puck is bouncing. His stick also appears to pass through the leg of the other player. Which, again, means he can't affect the puck with his stick.
At 3:05, which CPU isn't reacting?
At 3:49, you're doing a lot of "skillzone" defense. CPU players don't take any action against the puck carrier. Switching to the player that can best defend against the carrier will give you more opportunities to cause a turn over or break up the play since you can manually poke, stick lift and hit. CPU players will not perform these actions.
At 5:40, the shot is delayed because the LD is fading away. He's drifting back a bit. This is going to cause a weaker shot.
At 5:55 I'm not seeing any figure skating. He has a player in good position for the intercept at 5:59.
At 6:32, how are the players not reacting? You pick up the puck and skate it into your goalie. You could have turned to your right or passed the puck away instead.
At 6:44, where is the figure skating? You're keeping up with him. Your AI teammate knocks the puck loose, they pick it up again, you hit them, but their forward momentum carries their body down the boards while your player is recovering from the hit. You should have anticipated they would beat you to the puck and angle your player to farther ahead of where they were skating down the boards to cut off their forward movement.
At 7:21, the missed one timer could have been due to the pass being charged too much. Not saying there's no issue here though. It also looks like a saucer pass which is going to be a bit harder to connect cleanly with.
At 8:07, the delay looks a lot longer when slowed down. It also could be due to not fully having control of the puck yet. This one is also curious, but I don't see how it has to do with any delay as I'm realy not seeing delayed movements from your players.
At 8:47, that probably should have been a penalty, but it also could have been incidental contact. Which, doesn't trigger a penalty.