True but they've wasted prime opportunities to make the right moves in favor of moves that were clearly wrong at this point, ie, the Blais trade. He was clearly excessive given that we are in first without him. The focus on him was misplaced. They identified correctly that he needed to be moved for cap reasons, but the return they decided they needed was incorrect. They did not need Blais. Goodrow, Hunt, Reaves, etc was enough. They needed future pieces more. It was simply the wrong move. We can enter a verdict on that.
It's not too late to salvage the situation but it probably will never be as good, or as easy, as it was with some of the things we could have done. If we had swapped Kreider for Robertson (who is a PPG player) and a first, and Buch for Kupari and a first, we are sitting pretty right now and still in first place, just with two more young studs and two extra first round picks to trade up and get any center we want in this draft.