What's disingenuous about it?
Instead of objectively looking at the moves we made (and praising/criticizing constructively) the narrative of late by a # of folks is, we simply had no choice..
Copp, Chariot and or others "may" simply have been bad moves
You said "
we had no choice but to sign these specific players simply to reach cap floor" when I have suggested it could have been alternative players but it had to be some guys making real money.
Moreover, both things can be true. They needed to sign some guys for cap reasons and they wanted guys that could insulate the prospects. There is absolutely nothing contradictory about that.
And to be fair, you don't have to love the guys they picked but they had to spend meaningful money.
The team was about 10 million below the cap floor heading into free agency. As a rebuilding team you want to be above (not at) the floor so you can sell off other expiring pieces at the deadline so the Red Wings needed to spend at least 15 million in cap space that summer.
If you look at who signed deals that summer none of it was very appealing. Maybe they should have taken on cap dumps instead. Thats fair. Either way the point is that both of the following statements are true:
1) they had to spend meaningful money
2) they wanted guys that could insulate and mentor the young guys.