I think there are a lot of possibilities for sure
if you go rebuild you can't simply ice a bunch of minor leaguers and getting Boedker back provides a legit nhler. the return on that trade wasn't great but neither were the circumstances which didn't favour ottawa. my take based on everything I've read is Karlsson is a part of the rebuild but not with an open cheque book. I realize that the terms of a contract impact a contract but by all accounts the AAV offered was in the ballpark. I saw someone post maybe a bunch of the contract was in the lockout year.... anything is possible but that is rather unlikely. more likely imo is a rising salary throughout the contract that aligned better with anticipated revenue as the move to Lebreton would have happened in the back half of the deal. it's a business. that's the business reality of this franchise. a front loaded deal is likely something we didn't have the money for with the new arena on the horizon. it all strikes me as money wise it was close with one side thinking this is as far as we can go and the other thinking it's not far enough. that's life. move on. based on what we got back, it'll be a few years before the real results of the trade are clear. without knowing how the prospects turn out, how the draft picks turn out, how the NHLers acquired adapt to potentially larger roles, whether Karlsson signs and we get another pick. it's fashionable right now to **** on ottawa and the media have done that consistently since last December. They've been wrong on pretty much everything EK related since then. I'm quite good with watching this play out and assessing what we have rather than declaring winners and losers right now, especially so because I'm not in a rush to condemn everything this franchise does.
The options weren't trade for Boedker or play a bunch of minor leaguers (though it's starting to look like we'll do that anyways), if memory serves the trade was made before the UFA period, so they could have taken a futures package, and then made offers to UFA like Grabner, Bozak, or some other UFA.
I agree a back loaded contract is more likely than loading up the lockout years, that was brought up as an example of how not all contracts with the same cap hit are equal, that's all, same as how not having a NMC or NTC affects the deal. Changes like these can be used to negotiate down a contract.
The idea of not judging winners and losers now always seems odd to me. Yes, the trade could end up working out in our favour if we hit on some picks, or Karlsson's career goes off the rails, but the perceived value at the time of the trade is what the traded should be judged on; could you have gotten a better return had you played your cards differently. It seems the vast majority of the pundits feel Dorion didn't get value. Maybe there's behind the scenes reasons what that is, my take is it's because of artificial deadlines and changing the ask (wanting Ryan included while still getting a max return, then changing just to max return after teams took themselves out of play combined with an unwillingness to start the season with Karlsson and wait till the deadline if needed).
As for pundits being wrong about everything up till now, idk, you can't confirm or deny trades talks that didn't result in a trade, they may have happened as described but never gotten over the hump.
