Yeah, I have a hard time being concerned about this team, or even caring at all, when they just went to a cup final game 7.It's the same main core for the team. They've been awful to start both years, last year however was definitely worse defensively, it's not even particularly close. Because convienantly forgot all that because they made a Cup Final and now want to act like this is something new.
Believe it or not this the best GA they've had at game 21 in the last three seasons
This year: 67 GA in first 21 games
24-25: 78 GA in first 21 games
22-23: 74 GA in first 21 games
This team just loves to start seasons like shit, it's been 3 years in a row of this. The only good start they had was the start of the 21-22 season where they were 15-5 under Tippet (and then blew it by losing a ton of games in December).
20-21 (Canadian division year) was another shit start, 3-6, thankfully they pulled it together relatively quickly after that because it was only a 56 game season. So 4 bad starts in 5 years. At this point this is not an aberration but the norm.
It's a veteran team that knows that they're not playing up to their standards, and has to figure it out. I'm mostly concerned about Nugent-Hopkins and Henrique to be honest, I'm not sure either look like they're capable of breaking out of the funk. But as long as the team continues to carry the play for the most part, as they have been, I think they'll get going pretty soon.