As I stated above... they major pieces they gave up was a 1st and 2 2nds. Any team can recover from that. Losing Bob will be a blessing in disguise for them. It fractured that locker room. Now Bread is a huge loss simply because you don't find gamebreaking talent like that very often and frequently they are hard to replace.
Pronman shouldn't be gospel, but you're only looking at one of his pictures. Last season he ranked their 23 and under core 3rd, this year 19th. Why the drop? Jones, Wennberg, and Bjorkstrand all aged out. Jones being one year older doesn't move the needle for me to hating him as a player. They have 2 high end young defensemen and one who, I agree, is a top 5 defensemen. They have PLD who established himself as a young #1C. Good supporting wing talent in Anderson, Jenner, Atkinson, Bjorkstrand, and Nyqvist (and if Texier/Bemstrom adjust). I get you may not like Elvis, which is fair, but they have VV who has always surpassed expectations in the AHL... more than him though. Tarasov who is right in that Samsonov, Oettinger, and Sorokin tier of goalie prospects.
To me... having a 3 young pieces in Jones, Werenski, and PLD solves 3 of the most difficult pieces to solve in the NHL. They have their #1 and #2 defensemen set. They have their #1C set. They need to get the #2C spot figured out, but have 25-31 year old pieces that can buy them time there (and how you feel about Foudy might influence this). They need to get more dynamic on the wing, but have 3 potential fits in the pool already. They have solid defensive depth behind their top 2 in Murray, Savard, and Nuti with Gavrikov and Peeke as young depth that should round them out as 1 or 2 of them find their way elsewhere. I don't think they will be a contender for the next 2-3-4 years or until they can get another gamebreaking talent. But I expect them to be a playoff team 3 or 4 years out of the next 5 and winning some rounds.