Bad drafting will hurt you 10× worse than bad trades. You can get all the assets you like from trades, but if you can't turn picks into prospects into meaningful NHL players, then you're never going to get anywhere.

Hiring an incompetent coaching staff, establishing a losing culture.

Good answer. Mine was a little more simple. Doing nothing!!!! Exp: Rob Blake....

You mean like Rob Blake??? My answer was doing nothing. Like Blake. Your reply does fit him to a T though. Thanks for the comment?

Bad drafting, development, hiring

Bad contracts too

In my opinion there's bad deals, and then there is Chiarelli moves.

All joking aside, I think the worst GMs are ones that live in the state of denial in a sense. Don't believing that their team isn't good enough for being successful and not doing anything to it, or thinking your team is too good to not strengthen it further. Good GM needs to be active and believe in their work. Poile is a great example of a GM that have build his team slowly to succession, while Kekäläinen wanted to strengthen his team aggressively last year by making some high end moves. GMs that haven't been that up to par are LA and MIN GMs for example - they don't seem to understand the sh*t their teams are in, and that's why Wild have sacked their GMs repeatedily lately. That might not be the GMs fault only, as they might have pressure from their owners to make some moves.

Thanks for the comment. Blake is a prime example. Not doing anything. I still believe 100% that the Kings issue was not having a good supporting cast after the loss of Stoll, Voynov, Richards, ect. Trades and signings could have helped. Now with Todd and Blake (former Sharks) I feel a losing culture is rising. We are no longer a 3rd period team. We are a 1st and 2nd period dominating then get **** on in the 3rd team kind of like the Sharks in recent years. Not comfortable with it

Michael Russo wrote a really good summary on the Athletic. It was about what got Fenton fired in only a year by an owner who's only had 3 GMs in the 20+ years he's owned an NHL team.