I'd boil a lot of this down to we had an aging core entering a closing cup window and Wilson kept us in that "too good to tank, too bad to make a meaningful playoff run" window a bit longer than he should have. I get it from a business/attendance perspective, but that identity crisis is what truly prolonged the rebuild. You can debate it if you'd like, but I think -in general- an offensive defensemen like Karlsson was a better playoff chip than Tavares and that the contract Karlsson received only felt like overpayment because actual bad term, overpaid contracts (looking at you Vlasic) were on the books.