After watching those b2b cup runs, if you can't understand why JR traded for Reaves, I'm not quite sure what to tell you.
One thing that JR was actually VERY good in his early time here was being in front of the trends the league would be going. He morphed the team into the super fast demon that it was in 2016 because the trend that was going to win was - fast, skilled, and having scoring prowness on all 4 lines while having a back end that can skate. In BOTH cup runs though, we got battered quite a bit. Malkin was more or less the enforcer for the team in both runs. You had several guys on multiple teams taking liberties with all players. Remember Wilson's knee-on-knee with Sheary? And who did what?
So the strategy was supposed to be - let the other team beat up our guys and just ignore it and hope we get lucky that no one gets hurt? JR saw that speed and skill structure was going to quickly morph into the Speed, skill, AND physicality structure. And low and behold, the Capitals and St. Louis were the next cup champs and both employed that structure.
We took the same player in the 2nd as we would have in the 1st. The deal was more or less Reaves for Sundqvist. Sundqvist didn't do shit for us at time and 4Cs are easy to find. And Reave was here for 3/4 of the season and was meh mostly due to being misused by Sullivan.
So to the people who think that is the worst...you are absolutely outside of your mind. There is a SEVERE detachment from reality or an inability to understand what was going on if you think it is. Especially compared to the duds like Granlund, Johnson, the Brassard deal in hindsight, the Exp Draft and the McCann deal, etc.