I kind of get Drance's point the more I think about it?
I think that VAN management just saw the cost of facilitating that deal as getting Beauv back. I think their mistake was not churning more value in that deal as a cost for taking two years of Beauvillier. I believed that strongly at the time.
Now, I do think they expected Beauvillier to be better here than he has been.
Anyways, I guarantee you that if they had paid to dump Beauvillier at the draft in June, he would have said that it's a short sighted move from a team that can't afford to be spending more draft picks. Like I have zero doubt in my mind about that.
But I don't think his point is overly dissimilar to one I made - they did not do enough before the season to shift another big salary to create space for another target. He is right that it is harder to weaponize and leverage space now.
Regardless, this is a good move. And I think his criticism should be separate to Beauvillier. Beauvillier is just one of many examples of the Pearson, Beauvillier, Myers, Garland, group. But then again, I would have put Boeser in there prior to the start of the season and now Boeser is scoring a ton and also on the line that's providing the biggest matchup problems for opposition. So, maybe there was a hope with Beauvillier that he would return to the form he showed during that stupid heater post-trade.
TLDR: Trade was still a massive win. The mistake happened in the original trade where they did not receive value for taking on that contract. Beauvillier isn't the only one; rather, they needed to do more to add a few more pieces before the season started and Beauvillier was just one of a group that they should have accelerated moving out.