The hockey world - especially the Oilers fans - have a tendency to view the team with more emotion than brains, and thus the majority of them come out of it looking like they are "wanting for brain power" to put it in a diplomatic blogger way.
The Edmonton Journal's X ask on how the team did at the trade deadline that produced a lot of "hot takes" that you can read here if you're so inclined.
As always there is a rational explanation behind why GM Stan Bowman did what he did and didn't do.
Let's look at Florida's acquisition of Brad Marchand first
First of all, just like when I caught you up on the Mikko Rantanen acquisition by Dallas here, circumstances dictated the move as Matthew Tkachuk went on IR just before the trade deadline. Now Tkachuk is widely known as one of - if not the - best power forwards in the league, so this was naturally a huge loss and not easily replaceable. Marchand was probably the best of that player type available, despite the fact that he's now 36 and has a lot of hard miles on his body. He can still play - he did score 21 goals for the Bruins this year - but his defense has fallen off a cliff, having gone from +2 with the Bruins the season before to a -8 this year, another indication his play has fallen off a cliff. Tkachuk has put up more or less than same offense as Marchand has this year, and in nine less games played to boot. Tkachuk is also on LTIR right now, so his $9.5 million cap hit has been accumulating LTIR cap space for the Panthers like gangbusters.
In other words, the Panthers had a need (which the Oilers don't have) and cap space to spend it (which the Oilers didn't have). Since the Oilers didn't have the cap space or the need, why would they swing for the fences and acquire Marchand, especially when all he would do is shore up a position of strength? It made more sense to do what they did, grab Walman and much cheaper physical options in Frederic and Jones from the Bruins.
It's also worth noting that - laughably - Marchand hasn't played a single game for the Panthers nor had even participated in a practice until a week after they traded for him. Even then, no games, still only practice, and he might return back for the end of the regular season but that's not a given at this point. So, the Panthers traded a conditional second round pick for an injured guy to replace their injured guy......you can't make this (bleep) up. That situation is so comical I can't even describe it. You really would've wanted Bowman to waste a second-round pick on an injured over the hill power forward? Really? Hard pass.