While I was a much bigger skeptic of the trade at the time (I had no faith that Lindholm would be as good as he has been here), and subsequently changed my tune, I still consider the Hanifin / Lindholm deal a draw. Hamilton was, and is, a top tier #1 defenseman, and Fox is looking like he'll be at least as good as Hanifin, and probably better. They had to trade Fox, but in terms of assets given up vs assets received it's probably roughly a wash.
I agree the results have been middling since that trade, but - leaving aside the philosophical question about whether it makes sense to judge trades in hindsight or whether they made sense at the time they were made - it's more that he hasn't taken any big swings at anyone. There wasn't much chance of anyone getting a major win out of Neal for Lucic and everything else has barely been noteworthy. Hard to say whether that's something you hold against him or not - could be he has missed opportunities to improve the team, could be he has avoided potential bad deals that would have made the team worse.
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