At the moment, Montreal is the only pointless team in hockey, and the only winless team in the Eastern Conference:
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The question is what did we realistically expect from this team. My expectation, as an outsider and neutral observer, was that Montreal would struggle to make the playoffs, but would likely be in the hunt for a playoff spot. They only made the playoffs last year because they were in the very weak Canadian Division, and now they are back in the normal divisional formats and having to play more competitive teams.
You can blame part of the problem of this bad start on Price's "mental health break", but the real problem is the offense: 4 goals in 5 games is not going to win in any era of hockey. A telling comment was the blunt criticism of Jonathan Drouin, who after the Habs lost to the NY Rangers at home stated that Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin was leaving tons of rebounds in front of the net, but the Habs were not getting any bodies in front of the net to put in the rebounds. In that regard Montreal seems to have a lot of small and fast forwards, and not the bigger power forward types that are now popular around the league. Montreal was successful in utilizing the speed of its forwards in the playoffs last year, but I wonder if teams watching that playoff run have adjusted and defended them in such a way that this advantage has been neutralized, at least by the teams they have played so far.
