I would question the narrow edge for bucking, especially given the length of a Puget Sound. You may get better penetration and chipping force with the narrow axe, but you also have to be extremely accurate to make good overlaps/cut out the corners and the length of the bit will make for poor bucking (I think, I don't have one in this style). The axe may also be more dangerous due to the centralized forces and the necessity of greater accuracy.
The pattern and grind of your axe depends on the type of wood you are cutting. Rather than hardwood and softwood, it may be better to speak in terms of how the wood cuts and chips. Generally, dry wood will chip and cut with much greater difficulty, so not only does a change in the axe benefit chopping but also the angle and pattern of chopping.
When people say to cut at 45 degrees it is an ideal, or an average. You cannot cut continually at 45 degrees because you will either glance, due to the wedge shape of the axe, or you will have to move the axe inwards with each cut - effectively widening your notch with each plate. In reality, you can only cut at 45* for a single plate, or layer of the notch.
Given the standard cutting size of 12" we can estimate a notch of 6-7" depth and the second at 4-5" or so. In bucking you have to cut all the way through, as compared to felling where an inch can be left for the hinge. This means that your larger notch will have at least three layers of plates, depending on the wood you are cutting, so there will be at least 3 different angles for your cuts. The deeper you cut the greater the angle change will have to be.
I am not certain what these angles would be, but I estimate between 2 and 5 degrees. Ideally, a skilled chopper will cut his first notch at up to 60 degrees (with the tree representing 90* and the chopper's axe 0*) and work down to 45*. This sounds like quite a drastic change, but when one remembers the four layers of plates and an average of 4* change at each depth of cut there would be a 12* difference from the first cut. This would mean that each cut angle would be at 57* , 53*, 49*, 45*. Just keep in mind that for some trees the more shallow angle is preferred, and the shallow angle is much safer for novice choppers.
With dry wood and wood that is hard to chip it is better to cut at a steep angle, around 60* or so for your first notch. And it is unlikely you will be cutting more than an inch into the wood, let alone the 2-4" possible in green wood. This would mean 7-8 angle changes on the large notch, although much smaller changes are necessary here.
This is ideally what you want to work towards, just keep in mind that steep angles tend to glance more, and the harder woods will increase the likelihood of glances. If you are learning, then 45* is much safer and you can use that as your starting angle. Just keep in mind that you will get less chip, so the plate will be narrow. And this will result in a very shallow chip which ends at 30* cuts, or thereabouts, making for difficult cutting work.
As for patterns, the Connecticut is going to be the easiest to learn on for this type of work, although the other patterns square_peg mentioned may be best overall (considering other work you may want to do). In any case, have fun with it and think through what you're doing.
