They are not a top contender or close to last year's team. It's sad but we need to face those facts. Even more sad is that even in a game like this Scheifele-Wheeler are not split up, even if just for a little spark.
The only positive I see of this stretch this season is that it really gives us some good datapoints of the kind of contracts we can offer Laine and Connor, we would likely have way overpaid them esp Connor if it was not for the last 1.5-2 months. It also highlights how important and underrated Ehlers is to this team.