Your assessment is so far off I don't know what to address first. First off who cares about prospect rankings. The only thing that really matters is how many prospects aged skaters you are adding to the big club. It doesn't matter if it is through the draft, trades, college UFA's, or any other way you add them.
Let's look at just the past 3 seasons and I bet we had one of the worst rated prospect rankings during those years also. 2019 Pens add McCann 22, Pettersson 22, and ZAR 23. In 2020 Pens add Marino 22, Jarry 24, Blueger 25, and Lafferty 24. This year 2021 Pens add Kapanen 24, POJ 21, and O'Connor 22. So when half your starting lineup are players that started on the Pens in the prospect age range you did very well in the prospect additions. I bet the Pens added much more than many of those teams ranked in front of them.
Plus we just didn't add prospect age players but also players in their primes such as Zucker, Matheson, Ceci, Jankowski, and Tanev added to the roster and all added when they were in the 26-28 age range. Pens are one of the younger teams when it comes to players surrounding the core. All the starters are in their 20's besides Sceviour and he is not even a full time starter and also only 31 and a one year rental.
Lastly all those picks and prospects you mentioned. How many of those are doing anything in the NHL? Nothing like Pettersson, Marino, POJ, Matheson, and Ceci? All young additions on the team now. How many of those picks and prospects traded are doing anything close to Kapanen, Zucker, McCann, or even ZAR? Bottom line is you can go all the way back to the start of the Crosby era and the only pick and prospect that turned out from all those trades was Barzal and he was not even on that team we traded him to. The only prospect than turned out good was Kapanen and we got him back. So two players turned out to be good NHL players while we got players like Hossa, Guerin, Kessel, Hagelin, Iginla, Zucker, Kapanen, McCann, Pettersson, Marino, POJ, and so many others with those picks and prospects that the vast majority turned out to nothing.
So go cry about our future to you mommy. Obviously we are not replacing franchise players like Crosby and Malkin even if we kept those picks. You want players like that you better tank to a top 2 pick and even then most draft years don't have a player like them. All trade picks and prospects any day for good NHL players with term and are young or in primes. Unless it is a top 2 pick you are not getting a franchise player unless you are really lucky. All take the Kapanen types all day long. Give me the sure thing.
