Our ownership group is as bad and and as dysfunctional as Melnyk, but just without the reputation for it. No GM would succeed here with how our ownership handcuffs and micro manages the gm.
This simply isn't true. We've spent to the cap almost every year since the 04 run. Our GMs (Sutter, Feaster, Burke, Treliving) have had autonomy to make 99% of trades and signings, with a minor hiccup being the Ben Bishop thing years ago that caused Treliving to negotiate even more autonomy. When Sutter was GM he was given the power to bring in some pretty big name coaches in Keenan and then Brent Sutter. This is a class organization by all accounts and that starts with ownership.
Treliving was given the autonomy to fire a guy who won coach of the year just one year after re-signing him.
It was Treliving's choice in the 2016 offseason to try to find the next Mike Sullivan / Jon Cooper instead of going after a proven name. The problem was that he hired Gulutzan based on some seminar the guy gave at a coaches conference. And you know Gulutzan sold himself well. Smart systems guy. But he just didn't have the overall aptitude to coach at this level, at least not without more seasoning as an AHL head coach. It happens. Bad hire, but that is on the GM. The GM interviewed three guys I believe (Gulutzan, Ward, and Carlyle). IIRC his first choice that offseason was actually the guy who had just won the AHL championship... you might know his name... Jared Bednar but Joe Sakic snapped him up first.
Next Treliving hires a guy he worked with at the World Championships or whatever it was. Treliving didn't even consider someone else. Peters was even well-compensated. But he didn't work out. And worse, his replacement in Carolina proved much better over there.
And then he has to promote Peters' assistant to interim and the guy goes and wins the qualifier round. Sure, we all saw that Ward was in over his head against NHL teams (which the 2020 Jets were not) but Treliving lacked the objectivity to say "hey thanks for your time as interim coach, my friend, you tried your best, but f***, you're just not good enough and Peter friggin Laviolette is". Instead Treliving wanted some trash like "continuity". That is on Treliving.
The worst indictment of our ownership is that they refuse to pay a player to play for another team. But they have softened their stance on that too given how many players Treliving has bought out (Raymond, Brouwer, Bouma, Stone, probably a few others). This was more of an issue for Feaster where we lost the Kotalik trade due to ownership's stubbornness.
Now if you're saying ownership refused to rebuild... that's wrong too. 2013-2014, and 2014-15 were supposed to be rebuild years, and 2015-16 ended up a rebuild year thanks to Tank Commander Hiller. Feaster wasn't even fired by ownership, they hired Burke to do a full evaluation on the organization after the Iginla/Bouwmeester selloffs. That was a high level of due diligence. I don't even like Burke but his hiring as POHO represented a commitment to (perceived) excellence.
If anything set our rebuild back, it was spending too much every offseason instead of seeing cap space for the asset that it actually is. I could write a whole essay on this one but I will be succinct and say ownership was not holding a gun to Treliving's temple telling him that we needed to sign Troy Brouwer or James Neal or Mike Stone or Lance Bouma or Mason Raymond. Ownership didn't waive Paul Byron or Brett Kulak. Ownership hasn't completely mishandled Kylington or Bennett or Phillips. Ownership didn't fail to sign Gaudreau to an eight year deal either, that was management. Ownership didn't trade serious draft capital for Travis Hamonic or Dougie Hamilton (yes I still hate that trade, I wanted Barzal/Connor and was horrified to see both drop to 15). Ownership doesn't feel compelled go acquire plugs like Rinaldo, Grossman, Bollig, Bartkowski etc like clockwork.
You want to see bad ownership look north where fanboyistic nepotism ruled the front office for years and the owner is just a flat out creep. And even then, their ownership is miles ahead of Eugene Melnyk, the worst owner in all of pro sports since Donald Sterling was forcefully removed from that title.
I don't think Treliving is incompetent, but make no mistake I think he is fully responsible for the results on the ice, not ownership. He hired the DumDum named Geoff Ward and he is the one who fails to see the need to fire him and bring in a relatively accomplished head coach like Nate Leaman or Bruce Boudreau or Gerrard Gallant or Lindy Ruff.