That doesn't excuse Dorion. He had a major role in those picks. Murray probably saw them play a game at most. It was either our junior scouts or Dorion dropping the ball on those picks maybe both so we don't have any proof that they are that good. They jumped over some pretty good talent in the drafts to take duds. They seem to have had greater success with a few of the late round gambles over the years. It makes you wonder about those other young guys already in the system.
Noesen is hard to judge because he had injuries de-rail him, and ultimately the Senators got value for him in the Ryan deal so it is a wash.
As far as Puempel goes, I don't know how upset I can be about late first rounders becoming busts. Look at who was realistically ranked around where he was taken. The odds of getting a star player are pretty low. The reason we see more stars out of late round picks rather than 1st rounders is that Ottawa mostly drafts near the end of the 1st round when less players who will become stars (who are realistically ranked and will be taken there aka not just choosing a random star from the 4th round who panned out) are available to them at that point, and they have a lot more late round picks than they do 1st round picks which gives them more chances to hit on something.
With these late round picks like Stone, Hoffman, Dzingel, Pageau, who have panned out as really good players it seems like the Sens are doing better with these picks because expectations are much lower, and they have a lot more chances to hit on them. 1 first round pick a year on average vs 5 picks from rounds 3-7. After 5 years, we're talking about 5 first round picks vs 25 guys from the 3rd round or later in the draft. The Sens are doing a good job in the late round and beating the odds in the amount of NHL players they are developing, but I think this "Sens can't draft in the first round and can only find guys in late rounds" idea that seems to be coming up in some threads is misguided. Look at how many real stars are available around when the Sens have picked in the first round and then consider how many late round picks they've had versus 1st rounders and it makes sense why more of their stars are coming from later in the draft.