Hardly - even as one of Lou's absolute backers, it must be noted that there were clear weaknesses on this team, they were not addressed from the outside in any way while the opportunity was there, and now placing the onus on the present group of players to somehow figure out or solve those weaknesses from within has backfired.
This development must be added into any objective assessment one makes of Lou's work to date with the Isles.
No-one's calling for his head here.
Any supporter needs to be able to see this situation dryly.
MY TAKE AT THE TIME, since you ask:
I posted quite a bit heading up to the Trade Deadline.
Without losing valuable futures or bringing in guys "just for the sake of not being idle" (i.e. like Snow did with Davidson last spring), I thought Lou would have been able to add a guy with a poorer contract for whom we may not pay much of anything in trade currency, but would have been an attempt at directly addressing both issues (example: Kovalchuk).
Or he could have decided to part with certain players who he doesn't already plan with next season for currency to then pick up someone who could help more than said player (i.e. moving Eberle, then bringing in a Nyquist with the return).
Naturally, none of us can say we know what he was in on or what prices were bandied about.
We can judge by some other deals that a couple of fairly reasonable logical shots at attempting to address those needs were on the market and could have been deemed worth getting for the price they went for.
But I'M not the GM. I can only theorize.
But I and everyone else in Islanderville can see the following:
The GM has a construction site. Everyone can see what's missing on the construction site. No-one sees the GM bringing in a solution for dealing with what's missing on the construction site. The GM claims the solution will have to come from within. What's missing at the construction is not answered from within and leads to a worsening of the situation at the construction site.
Ipso facto, it's more than fair to place the construction site woes on the person responsible for the construction site.
Like duhhh...