The Hoffman trades looks like garbage, sure, but keep in mind that Hoffman is on an expiring deal, and even without the scandal came with the baggage of being a guy who is a one dimensional defensive nightmare. He was also not cheap either at over $5 mil for the year. SJ simply turned around and dumped him for a second and some magic beans, so they didn't value him any more than we did.
You could argue that Dorion could have held out for the same deal that SJ got from Florida, but this team would be even worse right now, believe it or not. We have lots of picks coming up - what we needed was an NHL caliber veteran who could take a regular shift. (For instance, look at what happened to our depth when we shipped out Brassard for picks and prospects. That hurt much worse than we thought it would.)
Yeah, Boedker sucks, but at least he is an NHL caliber player who can skate and take a regular shift. Playing in his place if he wasn't here would be some AHL scrub like Tambellini or Rodewald. And yes, gang, Rodewald is way worse than Boedker. To me, Boedker is just a placeholder until our prospects are fully ready to play. All part of the excruciating pain of the rebuild...