The reason no, but it embodies so many things that's wrong with this org it truly is a cherry on top of their futility. And trust me, I'd love to stop talking about it and forget it ever happened.
I think it somewhat embodies other moves but only in the sense that they're willing to move prospects or picks occasionally, and IMO that in and of itself is not really indicative of how they ended up where they are.
Them moving a few mid tier prospect or mid picks can be a problem but mostly when the player's they bring in don't help them. That's what really makes it a problem, and that's where the focus should be IMO. If more of the players that they brought in and kept helped them the way someone like Matthias for example did in his short time, they might have a decent team.
This to me is the root of the problem. Their inability to identify players that can help them. This includes their long line of crap defenseman, and poor depth players.
2013
UFA's - Benoit, Guenin, and Holden.
Waivers - Cliche
Trades - Berra
Extensions - Mitchell for 3 years
2014
UFA - Iginla, Redmond,
Trades - Brad Stuart, Jordan Caron
Extensions - Holden for three years. Stuart for 2 years before the season started.
2015
UFA - Comeau
Waivers - Wagner, Bodnarchuk
Trades - Gormley, Freddie Hamilton, Gelinas
2016
UFA - Wiercioch, Tyutin, Colborne
Add all this to prospects like Olver, Cumiskey, Heard, Hensick, Sgarbossa, Malone, Stollery, Elliott, Carey, and Hishon, that they tried to build with that just didn't work.
Plus trades to fill out their team for players that maybe weren't poor trade value, but included guys that just weren't that good like Talbot, Briere, Sarich, Tanguay, and now unfortunately Grigorenko.
Then we see how the problem just keeps compounding itself. Just bad all around, and rooted in an inability to identify good players.
You could probably add Beauchemin to that list of bad signings given how far his game has fallen off, even though I think he might have been the Avs best D last year.
If you go back to the previous regime you see similar moves. SOB, ROB, PAP, Palushaj, Mitchell, Zanon, Kobasew, Porter extensions to guys like Jones, Wilson, Arnason.
These are all players they thought they could build teams with, and they're all mediocre at best players. When you build a team with mediocre players and then just stop adding, thinking you can get by with them, you get a mediocre team.
They made the problem worse by drafting too may one dimensional players that didn't pan out instead of decent depth players. Plus trading away a couple 1st round picks in the last decade, and missing on a couple others, and that makes the problem even worse.
What you have with all those decisions combined, and all those guys on a team, is a perpetual group that needs some really high end players to carry the team.
Now we see why the core is in question. It's not that they're terrible players, or the root of the problem, they're just not quite good enough to carry all the dead weight. If you don't have good depth, you need really high end players at the top, and ones that can be relied upon consistently, game to game.
If you trade and sign for crap. Then you don't draft well enough to make up for it. Or vice versa. That's when you end up with a perpetually bad team going nowhere.
Just like how their core isn't quite good enough to carry all the dead weight, the organizations good decisions haven't been good enough to make up for all their bad ones.