Yes. Marino was terrible at boxing out the crease last season and keeping guys to the outside of the crease and bad at finding the puck\battles in the crease. He had a really rough time against the top lines this past season. Losing Dougie really hurt the depth, I think ultimately. And not to forget, probably Graves was a lot better at the crease protection, the year before, and so therefore Marino was able to thrive more then.
Last year was a cascade of bad things.
My thought: If Dougie didn't go down last season like that early on, we'd have a lot better last season and we'd probably still have Marino today.
On a perhaps unrelated or related note: I remember the quotes Nico were saying during the dog days of last season right before Ruff was let go (or after he was let go). Nico had a post-game or pre/post-practice interview where he clearly stated that some guys "wouldn't change their game" or "were not following the coaches recommendations to stick to the plan ". Wondering now, if Marino was part of that, and if so that also explain why we were so willing to dish him out for an upgrade. Pitts fans were saying he was hard to coach before he left the Penguins. Read it about him from Pitt board awhile ago, and also it was mentioned in the HFB tradeboard thread by some Penguins fans.
It is what it is, it happened that way. Still hoping Fitz has a real plan to replace, because we can bash on Marino post-trade now, but he was still a very valuable / good defender if he wasn't outmatched in the crease, so as of this instant we are much worse off, until this upgrade is in place.