Understatement. Chiarelli had McDavid, Draisaitl, Hall, Nugent Hopkins, Eberle as a core. He had two young quality d in Klefbom and Nurse then turned Hall into Larssen. Three quality first round pedigree defensemen to build around and support a young, elite forward group. I can't believe any new GM ever, likely in any sport, has been gifted this elite level of young talent led by a generational elite prospect in McDavid. Yet within five years, Chiarelli turned this roster into dog shit with significant holes throughout the roster, put it into cap jail with bad contracts requiring a magician in Holland to come in and nibble around the edges trying to kickstart this team around the remaining elite corp Chiarelli was gifted.
Chiarelli secured a gift trade with retiring ex-Oiler Sather to get Talbot. A good value move that gave them decent goaltending for a few years. His buy high on Koskinen and re-signing while about to be fired has given them serviceable goaltending, not elite.
Your comments are speculative regarding Petry who was inconsistent for many of his young Oiler years before having everything lock in as he was going into free agency. The Oilers and MacT for his tenure blew it with a series of one year deals which boxed them in when Petry emerged as a great d-man and 'given away' for a song. Huge mistake. But it's no guarantee Chiarelli, in his big trade reputation, doesn't deal for Reinhart and/or Hall trying to address a chronic positional issue going back to Tambellini's tenure. Playing your speculation game, Oilers keep Petry, they're marginally at worst better, and lose out on McDavid. Revisiting history, you prefer Petry to McDavid? Schultz under a different coach is an unknown. The 'Oiler Way' extending before MacT was to insert young players too high into the lineup and sink or swim. Schultz was incredibly badly handled. But again, revisionist history, keep Kruger, Schultz is played properly, Oilers win more and miss on McDavid ... maybe Draisaitl too.
So counting again. Chiarelli started with all of those elite forwards, Nurse and Klefbom as young pedigree defensemen, and when fired the Oilers were still picking in the top ten of the NHL draft. And for revisionist history, imagine if the Oilers had kept the McDavid draft #15 and #33 in a good draft they would have improved their prospect pipeline which would likely be contributing now as cheap-isn talent alleviating the cap issue Chiarelli created. Imagine further if the Oilers did not hire Chiarelli, they would have saved a draft pick as compensation but also very likely had traded for Dougie Hamilton instead of Reinhart because the Bruins would not deal with Chiarelli after the hatchet job done in his time there. Lots of permutations and speculative revisionist history to go around. Chiarelli - by far - was dealt the best hand and left with this team full of holes, drafting top ten, and expensive. Some really good work I acknowledge but overwhelmingly the greatest era of disappointment with the loaded hand he walked into.
We see things differently.