The blame game in this circumstance is rather straightforward. And "patched together right now"? Reminder, team was playing at a 75pt pace from Christmas to Hughes injury...with the team relatively as healthy or healthier than league average.
1) Tom Fitzgerald - No C/forward depth and bottom 3 forward prospects in league. Misuse of assets. Purely reactionary GM leading to overcorrecting when leverage is lowest and value/timing makes no sense. Etc. Etc. Etc. Doesn't understand team window.
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2) Pretty much all of the players. Bottom 6 obviously main problem. Then Meier and Mercer. Then Jack having yet to return to 2022 form, nevermind improve off it in totality...and yet another injury. Bratt ES SOG was abysmal this season, both from the eye test and statistically. Duh, Hughes and Bratt are great players, but with how top heavy this roster is, these guys needed to be elite and still progressing materially upward (see: #1). If they had, you'd be able to stick Joe Blow on that line's wing and get massive overperformance out of said player. Didn't happen despite the most favorable deployment of any top 6 line in the league.
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3) Staff/coaching/development
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4) Everything else