It was pretty obvious that it was a 5-7 year rebuild when Hextall started, it's just that this franchise and its fans (like most Americans) are adverse to reality.
The big mistake was not blowing it up completely and lowering expectations. But the goal was always to build a championship level club, not a playoff team.
When Hextall traded Schenn for draft picks instead of NHL ready prospects in the summer of 2017 (such as say Kyrou, Dunn, Barbashyov and/or Sandford) he was clearly stating the rebuild had 3 more years to go. Because he was trading a 26 year old 20+ goal scorer for players who wouldn't be in the lineup until 2019-20 and 2020-21. He went for long-term upside (and exemption from the ED) over immediate help. The emergence of TK and lucking into the #2 pick made Schenn expendable, since he was going to be the 3C or 3RW by this season unless Voracek was traded.
Adding JVR last summer replaced Schenn's output with a player 2 years older a year later. But didn't change the message sent by the original deal.
Now we're getting to the point where Hextall should be trading prospects/picks for YOUNG NHL ready players (patch with older FAs on short-term deals, which is what he tried with Stastny last summer, and Folin). My priority would be a sharpshooting RW to balance the lines. But given that Frost, Myers, Rubtsov, Morin, Friedman, Vorobyev, NAK (already up) are almost certain bets to make the 2019-20 roster, I can't see a lot of moves being made. Even with Simmonds, Raffl, AMac and Folin gone, it's going to be a crowded roster.
