I think they knew both Stone and Duchene were gone, but for political reasons, could not deal them in the summer of 2018 when their values would have been maximized. Ticket sales were already abysmal, and they were trying to sell the fans on the idea that while this was a rebuild, they weren't just auctioning off the stars. There was also Chabot and Tkachuk to deal with. They've had to actively sell both on the situation here. It clearly worked with Chabot, because he signed long term. Time will tell with Tkachuk, but judging by statements by his father, they weren't too happy about the Stone trade. Imagine if Stone and Duchene were dealt in the summer instead of at the deadline?
They made an offer to Stone, but it was below market value in one way or another. I believe the main criticism was that there wasn't full trade protection for the entirety of the contract. I can't imagine a player is going to give their prime to a rebuild if there is no guarantee that they will get to be part of things when they reach the back half of their contract. With Stone, I don't think it's a case where they would have upped their contract offer if the right trade wasn't on the table. I say this, because there were rumors that our back up trade was with the Islanders, and the return was Beauvillier + draft picks. That's not a strong enough return for a team to move on from a player for the sake of the return, they had to not want to pay Stone.
I don't think they ever got to making an offer to Duchene, because he didn't want to stay. Aside from the bonuses, I'd be shocked if they wouldn't have done the Nashville contract here. Unless something poisoned the well, Duchene seemed to be Dorion's white whale. While we were a bad team, and guys tend to inflate their production on bad teams, Duchene was a stud in his time here. Was he Crosby? No. But he was easily in that low end 1st line center tier, which is a very hard piece to get.
We apparently offered Dzingel 4.75M x 6 years. It was below market value at the time, but his market value quickly eroded because of his play in Columbus. I'm not sure what to think of this offer, because why didn't both sides circle back on July 1st when Dzingel's best offer turned out to be 2 years at 3.375M? I guess it's possible that Dzingel didn't want to be here, or we soured on him based on his play in Columbus.