True, but there was always the path and possibility that Debrincat would just take his Qualifying Offer and then go to free agency. There are several different paths this could take of course, and I don't doubt that the Senators "hoped" they could sign him and that he would be here longer than 2 years.
I plan to win Miss Universe, doesn't mean my plan is going to work out. We'll see if re-signing DBC is going to happen or if it's even a good idea. In the meantime, I'm looking at the RFA and FA situation of players at the beginning of the season (Talbot UFA-to-be, Zub UFA-to-be, DBC RFA-to-be) and that doesn't sound like long-term planning to me.
Your moving off of what I said.
The moves were made with the long term in mind, that was my point, they all realistically (unlike your miss universe aspirations) can be long term solutions that build towards short, medium and long term success.
If you want to argue re-signing DeBrincat may not be a good idea, that's fair, but the move is no different than acquiring Bobby Ryan, it was a long term solution (which in Ryan's case didn't work out). We could have traded for Fiala, signed him to a 7 year deal and have him demand a trade the very season, (similar to Heatley), anything can happen, but we likely acquired DeBrincat as a longer term solution.
As for your second paragraph: the team may have said "meaningful March", but the moves screamed "playoffs" to me; only way those moves made sense. Were playoffs realistic? IMO yes, and this is why I am disappointed at the outcome of the season. My supposed PTSD seems to have made me a more optimistic fan than you then!
Again, DeBrincat and Chychrun could be here for the next 7 years or more, I'm sure the team would love to make that happen, they were acquisitions that screamed building towards the future and filling medium term gaps that our prospect pool wasn't capable of doing, this wasn't going out and getting soon to be UFAs or fillers.
All this to say, the bar of "meaningful March" is not only too low, but it's not consistent with the moves they made.
Without the moves they made, the bar would have been realistically set at top 10 pick, possibly worse. You say it's inconsistent with the moves but third party observers pegged us as being where we are with those moves in mind,
The reality is the east is a very competitive conference, to the point that Washington and the Pens could both miss the playoffs, playoffs would have been a moonshot goal, even with all the additions, and unbiased (or at least outside of sens fans) observers all seemed to point to that with their preseason projections.
