Can't believe I have to explain this, but I'll try. Most everyone we traded has a future value to this team of almost nothing - because they were a UFA who was not in the plans (Eller) or who was not willing to re-sign for what we offered (Orlov). With the exception of Orlov, everyone we traded was essentially, easily replaceable with similar impact, at lower cap hits. We can find another Hathaway and another Eller (Strome?) For swapping out Orlov for Sandin, we got a player back at a cheaper rate who has similar overall upside/impact, but who is younger and cheaper. So all those trades were made with the idea that, this isn't a total rebuild, its a retool on the fly sort of thing. For better or worse, this is the hand that BMac is forced to play - largely because Ted made a commitment to Ovi not to blow it completely up while he's still competitive for 895. So the idea was generally to keep players who have long term value that would exceed their short term return. Lets say we traded Kuzy (everyone wants that), the return would likely NOT be a player who makes a better impact today, it would likely have been picks/prospects who would take several years to make any impact, leaving a massive hole to fill, thus the team gets significantly worse now. Trading out the core players who have term signals that we just don't care about next year, we are "rebuilding" and it will be several years before we see any benefit from the trades. That simply wasn't going to happen, yet.
With regards to Wilson, he's simply irreplaceable in terms of his impact vs age and term and cost. Sure, he might fetch 2 1sts and a prospect... but no one who wants WIlson will send us back a player who fills the hole he leaves behind. So sending Wilson out for a haul is a clear sign that we are fully rebuilding and everyone is going. The simple fact is that even during a full rebuild, a small chunk of core players stay around because they are so valuable that its nearly impossible to replace them with picks or prospects. Wilson is the only guy not named Ovi for who that applies.
I'd be sad to see Oshie go, but I know his runway to help this team is essentially finished so I'd be OK if he was dealt. I'd be fine with moving on from Backstrom, or Carlson, because they are overpriced for what they deliver. Whatever they fetch will provide more value tomorrow one way or another (immediate help, high picks, or contributing prospects at greatly reduced salary. Those players leaving would not create a hole that is unfillable. Tom Wilson is not in that category. He should be here, wearing the C, when the rebuild starts in earnest.
Lets all face it, as long as Ovi is here we're not blowing it all up, we're just going to tinker and try to balance his chase with being competitive. We may not like it, but we have to face it, that's where we are. Ovi and WIlson are the only players who are untouchable because they are irreplaceable.
So the long answer is, no I don't think we can contend like this, but we can be entertaining and give Ovi a shot at 895. We haven't been a contender since 2018 and that was, apparently, just a f***ing fluke anyway.