Fitz did a great job building 2022-23 team and lots of mistakes building 2023-24 team, although some of them you can’t really blame him
1) Meier trade - never quite worked out so far but on paper a move that a GM of a contending team has to make it given an opportunity
2) No Plan B for impeding departing D. Kinda goes back to #1, not resigning Meier would have been waste of assets of the trade while resigning him meant no possibility of resigning either of them.
3) Sharangovich (and a 3rd) for Toffoli this one seems a mistake - one should never trade young for old, already have signed Meier just keep Sharangovich who clearly had a lot of talent, put him in situations to succeed (see Calgary) and let him develop
4) Goalies - tough to say, VV and Schmid seemed kinda fine coming in and we don’t know if Helleybuck was really being seriously explored or not. The reason waiver pickups like Spencer Martin do well in Carolina is because the team is very well structured and one could put Darren Pang in nets if team bears down and starts paying attention to details.
5) Replacement pieces: kinda sucked. Nosek for Boqvist: downgrade, Tierney/whoever for Wood/Tatar -downgrade, etc. Only Colin Miller semi-decent. Boqvist was waivers a few months ago wasn’t being considered as an option to be brought back.
6) MM loss was big unfortunately- Fitz wasn’t to blame of course and nothing can be done to replace his Faceoff %
But overall 23-24 team was poorly constructed