I understand the comments about Karlsson and Letang being redundant as a criticism for why Dubas would target him, but why are we acting like Karlsson is some albatross contract that won't ever be able to be moved? He'll likely bring back good value as a rental with the Penguins retaining half of his deal. If Kevin Shattenkirk is bringing back a 1st+ as a rental, I figure Karlsson would as well.
Karlsson is obviously not a $10 million player, but I figure almost every contender without a similar type of defenseman to Karlsson would be salivating over the chance to get him as a rental.
You know what does help save a sinking ship sooner? Keeping your draft picks instead of trading them for a player you already have on your roster
I think talking about the Penguins situation that Dubas inherited is complicated. I don't think the team and owners were willing to accept yet that they were toast and needed to rebuild, to the point where I don't know if Dubas would have gotten the job had he come in with the mindset of "I'm blowing up the team and rebuilding immediately". I also think the owners wouldn't have approved of Dubas sitting on his hands and waiting to see what he had in the first off-season.
It's obvious now that the Penguins were toast and they absolutely shouldn't have done the Karlsson trade, but at the time, I think it was less clear. Karlsson was coming off a Norris season, the Penguins were dumping a couple of bad deals in the trade and it basically only cost them a 1st.
It's not the coaches fault that he doesn't have enough depth at forward.
They have enough depth at forward, Sullivan just grossly misuses them and causes them to be completely useless. Teddy Blueger is a great example of this.