I wouldn't be THAT negative. Or even really at all negative. I am still net-positive on Trotz, tbh. There have been A LOT of changes. But I don't disagree with very many of them. He liquidated some veterans, then turned around signed a bunch of veteran UFAs, and I don't really like some of the lineup decisions that have elevated veteran tweeners at the expense of younger players. Ok. But through it all, we still have a good lineup (on paper), and Cap security, and have bolstered our prospect pool quite dramatically.
It's not a "holy shit you won the Stanley Cup" level of accomplishment, of course. But it's still a little better than "break even" overall?
Maybe when you have 32 teams in a league, it's not really fair to ask for more than "break even"? Getting to #16ish out of 32 in terms of how things are ultimately being handled isn't the worst thing, and of course it's not the best thing either, but say what you will, Trotz is Doing Things. He's engaged and making plays. If the payoff hasn't come yet, then at least I like to see the GM putting his cards on the table, while still improving our prospect pipeline in parallel. It would be great to win some big prize with that approach. But I don't fault the approach so far, even if there are some stumbling blocks out of the gate atm?