we could have never made a DBC re-signing work. Pinto, Greig, Sanderson, and later Chychcrun (7-8mill?) all needed contracts. How can you pay DBC 7-8 mill knowing that?
it was always a 1 year rental for a #7 (+) pick so Dorion can make himself not look like a failure. Or Dorion has no ability to plan.
We could have fit in DeBrincat for 8x8 had we not added Korpisalo, Tarasenko and Kubalik (11.5M).
He could have been fit in cap-wise, but my argument has always been that it didn't make sense to commit 8M or so to our 2nd line LW given it wouldn't allow us to improve in other areas. Trading as much as we did for him never made sense for that reason.
I don't believe Dorion thought he was likely to stay beyond this season. Plan was to rent him for a year, have him score 40G+ and help the team make the playoffs (helping Dorion's case for remaining GM), then be traded away for hopefully as much as we traded to get him.
Not a great plan, obviously. Blew up in his face and we're much worse off for it.