I'm not even a habs fans by the way...
The Habs have Carey price who is healthy and when he is healthy he is franchise changing. The habs also had a lot of bad luck last season and bad lucky usually repeated.
I look at that roster and all the gaping holes at centre (they really don’t even have a true top-6 centre, forget a 1 C) and defence as well as a paradoxical derph of both talent
and size anf it looks to me like their top end with a Vezina form Price and a healthy Weber is a wildcard spot,
maybe a third seed. I just look at how their lines match up against Tampa, Toronto and Boston and they look worse in literally every position. I just can’t see them topping those three teams in an 82 game season. Not without dramatically upgrading their roster at least.
Ottawa needs to keep Karlsson and solve ita myriad of in-house problems to have a chance, and it looks like neither is going to happen. They look destined for a rebuild.