We are never going to get the AI you want. It's insanely difficult to program AI for such a dynamic game like NHL.
That said, there are giant gaping holes that can and need to be fixed. Your second pic is a prime example. There absolutely no reason for that.
A triangle like that makes sense down in the corner. With one guy being net front. But obviously it is somehow being applied up by the blue line, which is ridiculous.
Getting AI to make decisions like in your first part is difficult. There are always going to be issues with it.
Getting AI to stand in places that even vaguely resemble an NHL power play isn't hard. It can and should be fixed.
Yeah nobody said coding this game is easy but it should be a lot better than it is. There should be highly intelligent people working on this game so either there is so much going on with AI/strategies that player movement is erratic/broken or they are just not spending any time on it. Even if you can't get the AI to make decisions like in the first picture the players on a 5-on-3 should not be heading back out of the offensive zone when the opponent is heading back towards his own net with the puck. This is basic stuff.
Realistically you should have separate AI for different phases of the game as player movement should be very different depending on the situation e.g. powerplay: entering the offensive zone, powerplay: getting set up in the offensive zone when in possession, powerplay: recovering the puck in the offensive zone etc. To me the same player movement is applied whether the team is on the power play or even strength which is why we are getting things on the powerplay like the picture below.
As you say - "getting the AI to stand in places that even vaguely resemble an NHL power play should not be that hard". I totally agree. Most teams run a 1-3-1 powerplay. If you look at the picture below (sorry it's a bit messy), as soon as a team gets possession of the puck, players should be going to to their respective positions highlighted by the X. Basic movement should be in the directions of the red arrows (staying within the highlighted area). Should any player move out of this highlighted area e.g. due to recovering possession of the puck, then the player should be replaced in the highlighted zone. Player rotation examples shown by the blue arrows.
We really don't have anything close to this and I would ask why not?
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