yep. that summer the media narrative was benning needed to rebuild the defense and he got oel tunnel vision. he tried so hard to make that deal work, it was his singular focus, letting markstrom, tanev, stecher, and toffoli all walk without a substantive offer, all in the name of landing that big fish. and when it was all said and done, he "ran out of time" and wasn't able to get it done before oel's deadline and ended up having to settle for nate schmidt until he could eventually get oel 9 months later.