I think they got both lucky and unlucky. If they had drafted McDavid in 2010, and Hall in 2015, that would've been better from a team building standpoint. Hall to McDavid is a 5 year gap. That's a pretty long time. Malkin and Crosby were back to back. Kane and Toews. Ovechkin and Backstrom was 2 years. Kopitar and Doughty was 3. Even Toronto, it's a year or two between their biggest building blocks. Chiarelli aside, if McDavid had the big contract locked in, and Hall was only now in his first year of a big contract, I feel like it might've been a little different. So many moving parts with that though.
I just think the timing of the McDavid pick ends up being weird. To get him 5 years after you start rebuilding, with a new GM 5 years after you start rebuilding, it's rebuilding the rebuild in some way, and then maybe they got ahead of themselves while wanting to win with McDavid is on his ELC like Pittsburgh and Chicago did, and everything ends up being off.