At the time Tavares was signed the panel brought up:
1. How are they going to do the deals for Matthews, Marner, Nylander to make it work. Turns out they didn't make it work.
No cap room to build a viable supporting cast.
2. Goals from top 2 centers the previous 2 seasons Matthews and Kadri was second only to Crosby Malkin. Turns out Matthews Kadri should have been just fine and perhaps the better play. Or even keep Kadri and trade Nylander instead.
3. Since they now had Matthews, Tavares, Kadri they brought up the option of trading Nylander to shore up the defense.
Instead they traded Kadri and the defense never got fixed.
Bottom line you always want good players. Tavares was considered an excellent signing at the time.
It's what they did after that screwed them up.
