Well, that's pretty stupid as well. You can have the best development staff on the planet but if you draft the wrong players it won't make much of a difference.
I think there are other factors. Mass injuries to the NHL team forced up Steel, Lundy, and Drysdale in more recent years. During COVID, Comtois-Lundy-Rakell was a scoring line, but we separated them to spread out the scoring when players were coming back from injury. Comtois was a top-6, but got paid and got fat to play like a top-6. Lundy looked like he was playing injured all last season. Yet, during COVID season, we were converting Lundy into a top-6 winger, but regained center position again after injuries and Steel still faltering.
Then there's injuries to the players. If Kase wasn't injury prone, then he'd still be on the team. Jones seemed to be made out of glass. That also goes for RD Andersson in the previous two seasons in the AHL, being our better or best defensive d-man.
As for Groulx, Tracey, and Perreault, they were dealt with bad luck with head coaches after replacing Dineen in Bouchard (2021-22) and Sommer (2022-23) in the AHL. Last year's AHL roster construction was terrible while Tracey and Perrault weren't put into a position to succeed playing bottom-6 roles often.
Top-10 players are the more known consistent talents. Beyond the top-10, it's a crapshoot. We're much better at predicting defensemen and goalies than forwards outside the top-10, despite drafting many different types of forwards. We got risers, fallers, big ones, small ones, and safe ones. We went a different direction under PV with late 1st round/early 2nd round picks in drafting defensive forwards who can add scoring punch in Gaucher and Myatovic. Under Murray, we swung for the fences in recent drafts in Steel, Tracey (late riser, good work ethic), and Perreault (faller, bad work ethic). Yet, in later rounds under PV, I think PV let the scouting team pick b/c it looks like swinging for the fences picks.
With the amount of talent amassing on defense and possibly goalie, PV could use those talents as trade capital for top-6 forwards. Despite not being great at drafting beyond top-10 at forwards, the Ducks are still praised for their drafting prowess. Lots of teams passed up on Zegras, but Murray made sure to snag "Zee-grahh" at 9th overall. McTavish looks like an early hit despite the mass media and fans thinking Murray was crazy picking Mac at 3rd overall.