Or Sakic learned from his own mistakes, like all new GM's do.
Like finally realizing he wasn't going to fix the blueline through the draft and UFA, and that he needed to sacrifice is depth at forward in trade for defenseman. Otherwise we'd probably still have Duchene and not Girard and Byram.
The bad moves didn't stop with Roy either. Wiercioch, Colborne, Tyutin, and Yakupov can attest to that, and potentially Cole, Nichuskin, and Burakovsky too.
The truth likely lies somewhere in the middle. Sakic obviously has learned from his rookie mistakes but at the same time, things began being rebuilt properly once Roy was cut out of the decisions towards the end of his time here. Roy wanted to win now and it showed, but the quick turnaround happened once Sakic took over completely after he learned from his mistakes.
With the mentioned moves, Wiercioch, Colborne and Tyutin were basically stopgaps/warm bodies while Sakic retooled. Yakupov was hope to get something out of a former first overall pick which cost the team nothing as it was a cheap 1 year deal. Nichushkin is the same sort of deal that doesn’t hurt the team in any way, they will see if he can be a solid bottom 6 guy and if I doesn’t work out he can be waived and buried for the year. These aren’t really bad moves IMO, they aren’t good moves either but they were moves to fill out a bad roster or reclamation projects that didn’t hurt the team.
I will give you Cole and Bura though, those do have potential to be bad if Cole doesnt come back from surgery the same (he has been decent since being here though other than dumb penalties) and Bura has the potential to be awful for us if he doesn’t put up numbers, that’s the one I’m worried about since Sakic way overpaid for him.
Overall I think Sakic has done great though, even if he does make mistakes still. He’s learned a lot since he first started and his patient approach works really well to get things done at a fair cost in trades and contracts.