How much longer can Ken Holland wait to make something happen?

I went and looked at the Oilers depth chart today and got physically upset.

There’s one top-six winger on the team and it’s the guy who should be the No. 2 center. There’s also the guy who should be the No. 3 center in the No. 2 slot, and beyond that things are bleak. Some guys who can play limited roles, some guys who can maybe give you something here and there, and some guys who are just total black holes.

Let’s just lay it out there like this: Zack Kassian is listed as Connor McDavid’s best option for right wing. Little more needs to be said about the state of the Oilers’ offense than that. Maybe you say that’s not set in stone since you could call up half the guys on your AHL roster and get similar or better production, but the other choices (Sam Gagner, Jujhar Khaira, perhaps newcomer Markus Granlund or Kailer Yamamoto) don’t inspire much confidence either.

Jesse Puljujarvi is obviously something of a question mark since he might not be on the team within the next little while but even if he is, he hasn’t shown enough at even the AHL level to make you say, “Now that’s Connor McDavid’s next winger.”

As for Ryan Nugent-Hopkins’ second line, you put that guy between Alex Chiasson and any number of other wingers, including Milan Lucic, and you’re liable to get similarly disappointing results. Most of these guys are just barely above replacement level or, just as often, below it.

This is to say nothing of their so-so defense. Doesn’t seem like anyone can make a difference back there, but it might not be their fault since there’s some talent (Klefbom, Nurse, maybe even Matt Benning), some mediocrities (Adam Larsson, Kris Russell if you limit his exposure), and some that could go either way (Evan Bouchard? Caleb Jones?).

In net you have Mikko Koskinen and Mike Smith — somehow at a combined $6.5 million AAV — and it’s not totally clear what that’s gonna get you but the odds that it gets you something good seem pretty low.

And who were their big additions this summer? Granlund, Smith, Tomas Jurco (most recently in the AHL, where he’s likely to stay), and Gaetan Haas. The latter is a 27-year-old from the Swiss league who finished second on his team in scoring, a mile behind Leafs legend Mark Arcobello. He’s best described as a two-way, bottom-six forward. Which, y’know, you can get that just about anywhere.

This from a team that finished second-bottom in the West last season. Granted, Peter Chiarelli tied Ken Holland to a number of anchors that make it nearly impossible to maneuver. Lucic, Gagner, Russell, and Koskinen are all way too expensive for what they bring to the table, with contracts no one would be interested in taking off your hands. You can probably even make this argument about Adam Larsson, though one imagines there would be some kind of market for him if he were to be shipped out.

Holland also has to deal with three separate lingering buyout penalties, one of which is the Andrej Sekera decision he made this summer, which was a reasonable move but still, that’s another $4.133 million in cap dollars being spent on absolutely nothing by past mistakes.

The message to those protestations about a lack of wiggle room, which are fair to some extent, has to be unequivocal: “That’s what you’re getting paid for.”

Holland has a brand-new, long-term deal and makes a lot of money. While no one is expecting him to make the Oilers a Cup contender by 2022, there has to be something other than rearranging the deck chairs in the bottom six in his first summer as GM. The job of a general manager is to make the team better rather than make huge deals that grab headlines, but Holland hasn’t even made a signing that ends up in the bottom corner of the agate page outside of Alberta.

Another big problem, obviously, is that the Oilers only have about $4 million in cap room, and don’t have many options via free agency for using that in a way that will dramatically improve the team. At present, the roster looks pretty full anyway.

So it seems like the trade route is your best choice, except what does Holland have that anyone wants? Many of the constrictions his predecessor placed upon him aren’t going away any time soon and money will only get tighter as Nurse looks for a new contract next summer. Barring some sort of blockbuster — and again, who’s trading these guys anything without asking for a lot more than Puljujarvi coming back — there is no help on the way for McDavid, who will instead ensure the Oilers look like one of the best teams in the league when he’s on the ice before turning back into a borderline AHL squad when he gets a breather.

Plus, you can’t make like Jim Benning and trade what’s likely to be a lottery pick to get better because you can say what you want about the Canucks’ offseason to date, but their 1-23 roster looks a lot more promising than Edmonton’s.

If things stay on this course, it’s looking like the Oilers will have wasted four of McDavid’s first five years in the league not just circling the drain, but doing so almost enthusiastically while insisting the drain actually isn’t that much closer until it’s too late.

If you’re McDavid — now sitting on three straight hundred-point seasons in which he would have been the MVP if the rest of this team were even half-competent — at what point is enough enough?

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Ryan Lambert is a Yahoo! Sports hockey columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

All stats/salary info via Natural Stat Trick, Evolving Hockey, Hockey Reference, CapFriendly and Corsica unless noted.