At some point you need to move on from long-standing players. In their defense, Krejci came at such a low cap number it would of been hard to say no.
I'll just take last off-season. They should of been able to predict Coyle's production coming back down to earth. Maybe not to this degree, but he just turned 33 in a league getting younger every day. They went out and signed basically his younger (albeit not much younger) replacement in Elias Lindholm, making Coyle redundant.
Meanwhile, what they really needed to focus on was finding a #2 scoring forward to slot behind Pastrnak in the pecking order, pushing Marchand down to #3, because at 36 going on 37, safe bet he would start to regress and he has. If they wanted Lindholm, move out Coyle, create some cap space to address the more pressing issues. If you really wanted Zadorov, did you need Brandon Carlo AND Andrew Peeke?
Simply put, they got their priorities of what this team needed messed up. Then factor in an abject failure to find capable players for the bottom half of the roster. Jones, Koepke, Tufte, Beecher, etc. etc. just big and useless. I like Kastelic as the #12 forward, but that's about it.
Reality is their player acquisitions since the 2023 trade deadline have been awful. Orlov never came as advertised. Bertuzzi is useful on about 5% of the ice down next to the net, liability everywhere else. Hathaway was awful here. Last year it was Maroon, the leagues slowest player, and Peeke who might of worked in Julien's system but not this hybrid mess Sacco has them playing. The wheels fell off JVR and Shattenkirk in the 2nd half to where they weren't everyday players in the playoffs. Brazeau signed out of the AHL.
Even going back further. Beleskey, Backes, Nick Foligno. Is it pro scouting that's the problem? Who the heck is recommending these players?