This team has been banking on wishful thinking for years and years now and I really hate it. I hate the idea of "get in the playoffs and anything can happen", but it's an approach that I think ownership and a good chunk of the fan base have accepted. It's the mindset that have made this team a middle of the road team for so long.
It's obvious to point to the Hamonic trade as a turning point, but I look further back to the ramifications of the Hartley run and the Hamilton trade as ultimately detrimental to what this core could have accomplished. The Hartley run made management and fanbase believe this team was more than what it is and the subsequent trades and awful UFA signings cemented our mediocre status.
We should have drafted Barzal/Connor/Chabot, waited for our team to inevitably fall back down to earth the next year and get another top 10 pick. I don't think this is an "in hindsight" argument. Management and ownership have taken so many shortcuts in our rebuilds. Ultimately it's their job to recognize what is in the long-term best interest of this team and they have been brutal at doing that. But I guess their approach sell tickets so they probably don't care.
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