I never blamed Dorion for the Zib or EK trades as i always assumed those were Melnyk forced. If i assume that Melnyk had decided never to sign EK but rather to go on a 5 years of unparalleled salary cap floor spending and rookie turnover spree, then all Dorions deals make sense to me.
The first 3 years that he was given that unusual early extension for were because we were going to turnover the roster, suck, and live in the standings basement. So saying we sucked the first 3 years as some sort of knock on him suggests to me sloppy analysis.
The next 2 years of key development, where the pandemic caused much missing development time, required different deals. We werent looking for long term missing pieces. We were looking for the best available short term character filler for the cheapest and shortest term. Polled before we signed Stepan, most Sens fans expected to be competing for the top pick in the draft. Mgmt could see this too. So it seemed appropriate to me to be making the filler deals like they did.
Now the 5 years of unparalleled salary cap floor spending and renewal is over. We can expect discrete jumps in the team now. And the requirements for building are now different.