Yeh really no one knows how Skinner would do on a playoff contender. A gamble was made here. The Oilers didn't even know, as evidenced by the Drop episode. They were like most around here, imagining what Skinner could look like on Drai's wing with his skill and goal scoring ability, and noting that he's never had a chance on a competitive team. I think his skill and goal scoring ability in his career speaks for itself, so I understand why they made the bet. But with all bets, they might not work out.
We also could have went Mcleod instead of Henrique and there's an extra $1M there. Or no Arviddsson and there's $4M for Broberg right there. Let Janmark walk. etc etc.
But really, I think the Oilers were operating under the false assumption that no offer sheet was coming. That's why they went and signed all these guys and thought they could get Broberg/Holloway on bargain RFA deals. We got blindsided. But there's an argument to be made that they shouldn't have been blindsided and should have operated with that offersheet threat in mind.
This exactly my criticism of management.
They thought there wasn't much threat of an offer sheet. I suppose they thought that these guys would want to stay on a contender so badly that they'd leave millions of dollars on the table.
Management rightly gets criticized when they get it wrong. Just like how any draft pick could become a bust or be great, so to could any decision or non decision they make. Even if there are other factors at play, they are judged based on results
They should have known offer sheets were a real threat
That means that either they should have followed Jackson's own advise and prioritize youth, or trade them
We could have kept Broberg and Holloway for much less than what St. Louis paid them btw. Maybe 2-2.5 for Broberg and 1.5 for Holloway. That's what the leaked numbers from the agents were like. If we were trading them we could have got the Dman we wanted. Andersson, Provorov, whatever. Broberg had really high value after his great playoff performance. Jackson burned a lot of player value with his screw up
So if competence is measured in the balance of good choices vs bad, these offer sheets are pretty sizeable bad evaluations
Bowman doesn't get the criticism but his boss does