It's partly a failed re-build because their high picks haven't delivered. From 2017 to 2021 their high picks were: Lias Andersson, Filip Chytil, Vitali Kravtsov, K'Andre Miller, Nils Lundkvist, Olof Lindbom, Kaapo Kakko, Matthew Robertson, Alexis Lafreniere, Braden Schneider, Will Cuyle, Brendan Othman.
Given the number of picks and how many of them were higher, that needed to deliver more of their core. It failed to do that, and so now the actual players that have been the core (Panarin, Zib, Fox) are starting to get older, or aren't as good as originally thought. And they don't have the players coming from behind now to replace them.
So it seems like they are moving further away from contending. The window is closing and it never really opened.
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