McLeod and Foegele were nothings in the playoffs, Foegele showed up in the Florida series when he was bumped up to the top 6 but they were no shows the majority of the playoffs. Fine regular season players but the Oilers needed playoff performers so they brought in vets. The problem is that they thought they were getting the Arvidsson of 2-3 years ago (you were bang on about Arvy, I and many others were way wrong) and Skinner had never been to the playoffs and clearly didn't fit Knoblauch's system so I have no idea what JJ was thinking there. Then he re-signed the playoff 3rd line of guys past their primes that he thought could recreate the unsustainable magic of last years' playoffs.
Not matching the Holloway offer sheet is GM malpractice. Can you imagine having THAT player for the low low price of $2.2m/yr and a long term solution in the top 6 beyond that, a local guy who wanted to stay? Boom, there's your Drai winger for the next half decade. Huge huge miss by this organization. Such an obvious fit for this team that was let go because JJ/Bowman were butthurt by him signing an offer sheet? Nothing else makes sense.
The bottom line is that it was a lot of bets that have almost universally failed outside of the oldest man Perry. Ultimately it doesn't matter what they do in the regular season, if these vets can step their game up in the playoffs and help the Oilers advance, all of this angst about the signings will disappear. It doesn't look likely based on what we've seen thus far but it wouldn't be the first time vets cruised through the regular season and stepped up in the playoffs so lets pray to god that's the case here.
Regardless, I think there's 4 much bigger issues than the support wingers. McDavid has regressed hard from his usual standard, Ekholm as well and is he even going to be healthy for the playoffs, RNH is being paid to skate circles around the rink at $5.25m/yr for a lot of years and the ever present goaltending issue. The latter two issues can be mitigated if the former two were solved but if the Oilers aren't getting something resembling what McDavid and Ekholm used to be, their goose is cooked.