Hartnell signed a 6 year, 28.5 contract the summer before. Clowe signed a 5 year 24+ contract the same week, Clarkson signed 7 years and about 37 million that week, Horton signed 7 years and 37+ million that week. Lucic signed 3 years 18 million the summer before, Brouwer had 3 years and 11 million the summer before,...
Nobody liked the contract price, and I obviously spent way too much time several years ago getting aggravated about why they paid so much. The market was set higher than for what he signed for...and he was coming off of a massive discounted contract.
To the point about the front office, it was 2013. This lack of system players is what happens when you have a trainwreck of a front office drafting year over year 05-08 (Scotty started righting the ship in summer 08). Bickell took 6 years to show up as a meaningful contributor. Shaw and Saad had just emerged (which shouldn't be expected), and they just drafted Hartman. They had to peg the needle for 2 rings on the cap over 4 years...not sure how much better their decision making process should have been.
Just be mad Bickell was sick or point out an actual problem with their decision making process.