Murray didn’t rebuild, he tried to retool like he did in 2009-12. He didn’t sell off veterans or weaponize cap space for picks. The teams he put together were just bad. You don’t sign a Shattenkirk to a 3 year deal in year 2 of a rebuild.
Murray did a slow roll rebuild b/c he's a tinkerer. No one wanted Perry's contract and we bought him out in 2019 off-season. Bob also knew that Eaves and Kelser would never play again due to medical issues. That's three top-6 players gone for 2019-20 season. GM Murray did sell off assets, which was the middle core of Monty (2019 TDL), Kase (2020 TLD), and Ritchie (2020 TDL) for picks and players. We took on Backes' contract to help land a late 1st round pick in the Kase trade. We got extra first round picks in 2019 and 2020.
Eakins was promoted to head coach in the summer of 2019, from the Ducks' AHL affiliate. Eakins was in charge of a rebuild with all
the youths onboard with RW Terry, C Steel, LW Jones, LW Comtois, C Lundestrom, LD Guhle, LD Mahura, and LD Larsson.
Anaheim traded for Des using a 4th round pick in 2019. Des would be the fighter and Manson can focus on playing more on the ice.
Early 2019 season, Manson fell to injury and Murray used a 7th round pick and an unknown prospect Martinsen.
For the 2020 season, Bob swapped Gudbranson's $4 mil AAV for Shatty's $3.9 AAV as a third-pairing OFD. Swapping Shatty for Guds is like swapping Vatrano for Rakell, Guds was on the last year of his contract too. We got a 5th round pick for Guds, a vast upgrade of asset compared to what Murray traded for Guds. Murray tried to get Shatty the previous year, but Shatty wanted to increase his price by playing with the Bolts for less. The gamble worked. Here's a quote from Murray on Shatty:
"Well obviously he knew we liked him and I liked him, and he had a great chat a year ago with myself and with (coach) Dallas [Eakins]," Murray said. "He liked Dallas a year ago. Hey, Kevin made the right decision, as much as I didn't like it last year. He made the right decision and I told him so. But that's to our benefit now. Because now he's won, now he knows how to win. That's only good for us and our younger players."
Based upon your criteria, the Ducks didn't add high-end FA talent. Lost talent for assets at 2018-19 TDL, lost three top-6 talents in 2019 off-season, and lost more talent for assets at 2020-21 TDL while using cap space to help land a 1st round pick. The proof is in the draft slot. We didn't do anything in the 2021 off-season, just stood pat and Murray finally used the word "rebuild" publicly. Just because Murray's rebuild was slower and had thoughts on some roster balance doesn't discount it as a rebuild. Based upon what we witnessed, Murray's rebuild has us coming out of it faster than Verbeek's despite Verbeek being gifted, Terry, Zegras, Drysdale, Lundy, McTavish, and a top-5 propsect pool.