So everywhere outside of wingers but only 1 whopping points ahead? Yeah ok.
You’ll have to give the Sens fanbase some time to digest this new reality. I have tried to warn HF Sens about this but it didn’t go well as I got lambasted on the Sens board by a few posters.
But for me, what is happening is not surprising at all and my narrative started in 2021 after probably the worst off-season that I ever witnessed from a NHL GM. I knew the Sens were in really big trouble with Pierre Dorion as its GM. It’s really simple, in my mind based on a lot of analysis, Dorion is the worst GM in NHL history, AINEC with even Milbury. All he did was basically dilapidating asset after asset. To understand this you have to know that in 2018 they started a rebuild with Erik Karlsson, Mark Stone, Matt Duchene and many other good players all in their PRIME. Plus had guys like Chabot, Batherson, etc in their prospect pool. Nobody could ever dream of a better situation to start a rebuild. Minus Karlsson and Pageau trades, Hughes/Gorton got a better overall return for Lehkonen, Chiarot, Kulak and Toffoli than all of Stone, Duchene, Brassard, Hoffman, Dzingel, Ceci, etc. It's mind numbing.
After the 2020 draft, IMO Sens easily had the best future in the NHL, but the Dorion experiment continued and here we are today. The Habs have had a very promising rebuild so far so not very surprising that they are seen as in front of the Sens right now.
All that said, it is still to be determined and a lot will depend on the new Sens GM and if he is able to pull more moves ala Ullmark; but one thing for sure in terms of prospects and picks, Montreal has a big advantage there