I have been having this issue for a long time now and I am sure that others have as well.
When a player fails to connect or leaves in the early game with few or no minions it can ruin players chances of placing high due to builds that rely on deathrattles or damage effects to ramp up with other players. Quilboars, mechs, beasts, and undead builds are greatly effected by these. With the popping of deathrattles and/or divine shields being key for players to succeed. If you have nothing or not enough to fight, you don’t get the buffs required to keep up with the other players. An easy way to deal with this would be have token minions added to the boards of missing players that get stronger as each turn passes. For instance, starting on turn 2 they get a 1/1 minion and each turn after they get another until they have a full board. From there they get a +1/1 buff each turn. This will mostly eliminate any problems with divine shields and allow players to strategically place deatrattles that need to proc.