"Luca Sbisa will be a top 4 defensemen for us"
"Sutter is a foundational player for us"
Does this kind of judgement sound unquestionable? How about this sequence of trades
Kesler = Bonino, Sbisa, McCann, 3rd = Sutter, Gudbranson, Dorsett = injured Sutter, Tanner Pearson
How to turn a gritty Selke power forward centre (maybe the single most derivable asset in the league) into Tanner Pearson.
[minus a third (85th overall), 2nd (55 overall), 2nd (33 overall), 4th (94 overall]
That is the chain of events from those brilliant men in the organization.
The people you speak of who understood the CBA and Salary Cap etc. were coerced out of the organization years ago.