because the on ice product he built sucked, so he got high picks and it STILL sucks we know that because Ottawa was better
And why do you think Ottawa started the season 2-12-1? After the first month (February 12th), they were 21-16-4 (92 pts pace over 82 GP), which was 14th in the NHL and 3rd best in the North division
Ottawa was also negatively impacted by the GM decisions.
Dorion traded CBJ's 2nd round pick (#37th OA) for Derek Stepan, who ended up hurting the team more than helping. He also waived Rudolfs Balcers (claimed by SJ and did well for them) and Filip Chlapik (lost patience and left for Europe) in favor of Artem Anisimov (done at the NHL level) and Cedric Paquette (who really didn't want to be in Ottawa just after winning the Cup). Colin White who is not a star but a solid bottom-6 player, was healthy scrathed 4 games early in favor of a worse player.
Dorion also traded a 4th and 5th for Joshua Brown and Erik Gudbranson who were abused in the defensive zone. Having all of Brown, Gudbranson, Mike Reilly and Braydon Coburn as 4/6 of your defensive squad is a recipe for disaster to say the least...
Artem Zub, Ottawa's clear 2nd best D-man only started playing in game 10. It took even longer for Erik Brannstrom to be integrated in the lineup (although he had covid in Europe). Victor Mete, a very fast skater who is pretty decent defensively and breakout very well, only got in there after he was waived. Maybe Dorion should have gotten him earlier for cheap as he was not in Montreal plans anymore.
To their defense, they were one of the few teams who hadn't play in 10+ months, there was a 50% roster turnover and real training camp to be properly prepared for the season, but even with all that, the early roster decisions were simply bad. So "finishing below Ottawa" maybe shoudn't be your barometer for being bad. They were pretty decent once they got over their own GM sabotage and finished the season really strong once they figured how to defend on the road.