I don’t think they’re a significantly more talented team than they were before. That is not say I’m down on the work Kyle Dubas has done, which has been substantial and transformative inside the span of two weeks, from offloading the two worst contracts on the team to scouring the FA bargain bin to pulling the trigger on the biggest blockbuster of his managerial tenure to date. But allow me to undertake a simplistic, opinionated bit of analysis for a second.
For me, while it had clear and understandable cap motives, Cody Ceci is a small downgrade on Nikita Zaitsev — their offensive games are close and Zaitsev is less of a mess defensively.