Have to echo other comments annoyed about this. It's not particularly losing Slepyshev that gets me so much as: 1. how it fits into the Oilers' history with prospects, especially European prospects and 2. how he was handled.
Slepyshev was very up and down for us, and might never have turned into a reliable NHLer, absolutely true. But like so many other prospects, we never seemed to give him a push to really flame out and lose his spot, we just sort of dicked him around with very little patience for him to make mistakes. We didn't try combos that worked (Drai-Slepyshev) well in the past. We gave equally undeserving players way more time than him for no apparent reason. It's just frustrating to see, especially when the Oilers failed miserably at replacing/upgrading on Slepyshev level gaps in the roster last offseason. We still haven't replaced the roles Eberle, Pouliot, and Hendricks filled, no matter how you felt about them. Now we're adding gaps of the Slepyshev and Pakarinen variety. If we had plugged those other holes before, losing Slep and Pak would be no big deal. But we were already on pretty awful ground going into the offseason. I have very low confidence that the Oilers can fill all those gaps now.