My take is that between Hitchcock and Oshie you kept the wrong guy. That said and being fair, Oshie was expected to be THE GUY in St Louis and in Washington he had no such pressure on him.
I think Oshie had to go regardless of Hitchcock being there or not.
The team struggled in the playoffs offensively three years in a row. Part of that is lack of elite center depth, but that doesn’t excuse everything.
Even if Hitch was fired after losing to the Wild-which many people were stunned that he wasn’t-I think Oshie needed a change of scenery to mature and progress to be a better player instead of being in STL. Which is why I don’t regret him being traded or miss him.
And once Tarasenko came to the US, it was no longer Oshie being the offensive wizard. For whatever reason, the young forward trio of Perron, Berglund, Oshie didn’t develop in STL the way people thought they would. 2/3 ended up turning into good players after being traded. But thankfully Schwartz and Tarasenko lived up to the hype.