Yet Boston, Anaheim and to some extent even LA were not the most skilled teams. I mean "elite skill" is rather vague and I'm sure you want to bend that definition to fit players like Kopitar, Doughty, Bergeron, Krejci, Chara etc. while at the same having the goalposts just out of reach for Larkin/Mantha/Rasmussen/Cholowski/Hronek/etc, but it's not as simple as more skill always winning more.
What did I just read? Anaheim was not the most skilled team? They were captained by one of the most skilled defenseman of his era and were led by Chris Pronger, Ryan Getzlaf, and Corey Perry to round things out. An elite winger, an elite center, and two elite defenseman. Skill out their ears with Kunitz and McDonald holding down the complementary units.
Same with LA. Doughty and Kopitar complemented by a sexy next tier of Richards, Carter, and Voynov.
You may have an argument with Boston because that team probably doesn't win a Cup without Tim Thomas, but they also don't win the Cup with that nasty depth down the middle in the very skilled bunch of Bergeron, Krejci, and Seguin. Having Marchand and Lucic didn't hurt either.
Oh, wait. I see where you're going with this. False dichotomy, eh? Skill is a dirty word here, is it? No. Sorry. That's not how it works. Being a dirty piece of shit doesn't keep Perry, Kunitz, and Marchand outside of the skilled group. Being a wrecking ball doesn't make Lucic or Richards unskilled. Being a wall in front of the net and on the boards doesn't mean Pronger and Doughty aren't skilled defenseman.
Using Obey's example, if we want to beat say Toronto, who would you rather be?
Toronto :
Skill - 90
Size - 70
Potential Red Wings Team A:
Skill - 85
Size - 65
Potential Red Wings team B:
Skill - 80
Size - 80
Which team would have a bigger chance to take Toroto out? This is obviously extremely simplified and there are other factors like coaching, speed, goaltending, luck etc, but we need to have some nuance in the discussion, we're not talking about the difference between a team full of Datsyuk's or a team full of Glendenings. Larkin is very skilled, Mantha is very skilled, Rasmussen is skilled, we're going to keep drafting skilled players. But if you're not the MOST skilled team in the league you might as well try to find an advantage in other aspects. Speed, character, size.. these could be factors where we end up with an advantage. Factors that elevate us above some other teams despite the fact we don't have a #1C that's more skilled than McDavid.
Obey's example, as I said previously, is a crock. Again, were operating under a false dichotomy. Give me an example of a player who is "skill" 80 and "size" 65. What does that even mean?
What does size mean? Who gets an 80 in size? Is it the emaciated 6'3" Danny Dekeyser who struggles in front of the net or is it the once dominant bull in a China shop Mike Richards at 5'11."
And who gets a higher skill rating? Patrick Kane, Pavel Datsyuk, or Nikita Kucherov?
And what even is skill? How many skill points does Ovechkin get for being arguably the best goal scorer of all time while also being a very incomplete player? How many skill points does Datsyuk get for his takeaways? What counts for more? How many points are rewarded for a skilled shot versus passing versus takeaways versus dekes?
And where the f*** is skating in all of this? What if "80" in "size" and "60" in "skill" is also "15" in "skating?" Do we really need to clone prime Jason Allison to find that out?
This whole disingenuous argument is once against set up to fight an argument no one is making. Size is part of a package as is skill, skating, character, etc. But skill is still king. You have big skilled guys who are dominant, you have small skilled guys who are dominant, but you don't have big unskilled guys who are dominant.