That's the MO of this team. Only time in the last 5 seasons they've had a genuinely good start would be one year with Tippett which is now like 4 years ago. Woody's second year they started off 7-3, but were a mediocre 10-10 at game 20, not great.
Team has to play at an extremely high level to make up for wishy washy goaltending that doesn't give them much margin for error. At the start of a season when things are naturally not as in sync, that's likely not good enough.
It's actually kinda amazing they are 6-6-1, worst shooting percentage in the league, bottom 5 PP, bottom 3 PK, bottom 5 offense, both goalies with sub .890 save percentage, McDavid not even in the lineup for several of those games. They're playing about as poor as they can.