It's not that their best players are not good, Hall is one of the best wingers in the game, RNH is becoming a solid 1C, Eberle has incredible skill. The problem is that they're expected to carry the load on their shoulders, in the same way Gretzky/Messier did back when. They're all very good players, but you don't build a team by having 3 good players. The Oilers FO has failed at surrounding them with capable supporting cast. You can't pin it all on them though, Edmonton is not a popular FA destination and even keeping your own guys is hard, as we've seen with Petry this season. So because the players are reluctant to come to Edmonton, they have to throw money at them, which sometimes works out alright even though it looks stupid at first (Pouliot) or it doesn't (Nikitin). This issue might be fixed by getting competent management, McDavid is not enough of a reason for FAs to come. There has to be smart trading, we've seen glimpses of MacT figuring it out, acquiring Roy was huge for Yak so we'll see where they go from here. He has the assets, all that's needed is a couple smart deals or maybe one blockbuster? Finding a trade partner will be hard, not going after Boychuk or Leddy seems like a huge mistake right now. Chicago might be willing to part with someone like Hjalmarsson to save cap space maybe? Other than that there's uhhh, Toronto? They can always try throwing money at Franson/Sekera, but I don't expect that to work.