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A visualized history of the Edmonton Oilers
The Edmonton Oilers have a venerable past and an optimistic future. How did this franchise get to where it is today? We take a look at the Oilers, from the WHA years and the glorious '80s, to recent frustrations and back-to-back last-place finishes.
Our infographic visualizes a year-by-year breakdown of how the Oilers were put together and how well they did. But the magic of the Internet makes this more than just a cursory glance. Each data point also has some history, context and explanation.
Hover with your mouse over the category titles on the left side to see more information. Hover over each of the orange boxes, stars or columns of blue-and-orange boxes to see information windows pop up. Those windows aim to give you a deeper understanding beyond the numbers.
For best results please use Chrome or Firefox to view this infographic.
To read more about this project and other Oilers news, click here. To check out the Oilers on the web, click here.
Code and design by Lucas Timmons. Inspired by Flip Flop Flyball. Research and content by Jim Matheson and Lucas Timmons.
Playoff notes:
The Oilers did not meet the Flames in the playoffs this season.
Playoff notes:
The Oilers did not meet the Flames in the playoffs this season.
Playoff notes:
The Oilers did not meet the Flames in the playoffs this season.
Playoff notes:
The Oilers romped 4-1 in the first playoff meeting between the clubs, winning two games 10-2 and 9-1. Andy Moog, not Grant Fuhr, played all five games in net for the Oilers, who spent most of the time terrorizing the Calgary goalies. Edmonton scored 74 goals in 12 games through the first three playoff rounds, but they came up empty in the final against the New York Islanders.
Playoff notes:
The Oilers outlasted the Flames in seven games in a series that was noteworthy because only two games had fewer than eight goals. The teams used all of their goalies ¬- Grant Fuhr won three games and Andy Moog the final one 7-4 while the much-maligned Reggie Lemelin won twice and Don Edwards had one win. The Oilers were 2-1 at Calgary in the series and only 2-2 at the Northlands Coliseum, a building where they seldom lost during the regular season. Of note: Edwards was playing with the Buffalo Sabres when he gave up Wayne Gretzky's 77th goal to break Phil Esposito's single-season record on Feb. 24, 1982.
Playoff notes:
The Oilers did not meet the Flames in the playoffs this season.
Playoff notes:
The Flames beat the Oilers in seven games when defenceman Steve Smith, who had turned 23 that day, went back to get a puck and unbelievably had his pass go off goalie Grant Fuhr's leg and into the Edmonton net early in the third period of Game 7. Calgary won 3-2.
"I got good wood on it," said Smith, now the Oilers assistant coach who later went on to play for the Flames, as well.
"I turned and saw Lanny's (McDonald) hands in the air and I had to ask what happened," said Flames forward Perry Berezan, who got credit for the goal because he was the last Calgary player to touch the puck.
It was the only goal Berezan, an Edmonton native, would score in the playoffs.
"Sometimes, the good Lord smiles on you," said McDonald.
As much as Smith's gaffe was costly, people forget the Oilers had most of a period left and had a six-on-four manpower advantage in the last minute when Calgary got caught for too many men on the ice and the Oilers yanked Fuhr for an extra skater. Lost in Game 7, as well, was this: Calgary lost its second-best defenceman, Gary Suter, to badly damaged knee ligaments after taking a hit from Mark Messier. Suter, who scored six points in the second-to-last league game against the Oilers, was done for the rest of the playoffs.
In Game 6, Calgary also lost forward Carey Wilson to a ruptured spleen, with Smith fingered as the culprit.
Playoff notes:
The Oilers did not meet the Flames in the playoffs this season.
Playoff notes:
his time, the Oilers went in as slight underdogs, even though they were the defending Stanley Cup champions, because Calgary had won the Smythe Division while the Oilers finished second. In the end, the regular season meant squat as the Oilers won the series 4-0.
The most dynamic game was the second one when Jari Kurri tied the score with four minutes left in the third period, going around Calgary defenceman Paul Reinhart and blowing a 30-footer past Mike Vernon. Wayne Gretzky won the game in overtime with a short-handed slapper while coming down the left wing just before Mark Messier's tripping penalty expired.
"Biggest goal I ever scored," said Gretzky.
In Game 3, Marty McSorley speared Mike Bullard after the Oilers' tough guy had been drilled face-first into the boards by Gary Roberts. McSorley was looking to even the score against anybody in a Calgary sweater. Bullard happened by and left on a stretcher.
"I think Marty sort of passed out," said Oilers coach Glen Sather, trying to deflect the blame from McSorley.
Nice try. McSorley knew what he was doing.
Playoff notes:
The Oilers did not meet the Flames in the playoffs this season.
Playoff notes:
The Oilers did not meet the Flames in the playoffs this season.
Playoff notes:
The Oilers prevailed in seven games in what have been the best-ever playoff between the clubs with both of the final two games going to overtime. There was Theo Fleury sliding across the ice on his knees, absolutely ecstatic, after his OT winner on the Oilers' Grant Fuhr in Game 6 to tie the series 3-3, then a disbelieving Esa Tikkanen beating Calgary goalie Mike Vernon seven minutes into OT in Game 7 at the Saddledome.
The Oilers fell behind 3-0 before Tikkanen gave Edmonton a sliver of life in the dying seconds of the first period with a bad goal on Vernon. The winner was a fluke. Tikkanen was standing beside the boards to Vernon's left and sent a harmless shot in the goalie's direction, but the puck glanced off Flames defenceman Frank Musil and nestled past Vernon.
Musil now works for the Oilers as a scout while his son, David, is playing junior with the Edmonton Oil Kings and was the Oilers' second-round draft pick in 2011.
Playoff notes:
The Oilers did not meet the Flames in the playoffs this season.
Playoff notes:
The Oilers did not meet the Flames in the playoffs this season.
Playoff notes:
The Oilers did not meet the Flames in the playoffs this season.
Playoff notes:
The Oilers did not meet the Flames in the playoffs this season.
Playoff notes:
The Oilers did not meet the Flames in the playoffs this season.
Playoff notes:
The Oilers did not meet the Flames in the playoffs this season.
Playoff notes:
The Oilers did not meet the Flames in the playoffs this season.
Playoff notes:
The Oilers did not meet the Flames in the playoffs this season.
Playoff notes:
The Oilers did not meet the Flames in the playoffs this season.
Playoff notes:
The Oilers did not meet the Flames in the playoffs this season.
Playoff notes:
The Oilers did not meet the Flames in the playoffs this season.
Playoff notes:
The Oilers did not meet the Flames in the playoffs this season.
Playoff notes:
The Oilers did not meet the Flames in the playoffs this season.
Playoff notes:
The Oilers did not meet the Flames in the playoffs this season.
Playoff notes:
The Oilers did not meet the Flames in the playoffs this season.
Playoff notes:
The Oilers did not meet the Flames in the playoffs this season.
Playoff notes:
The Oilers did not meet the Flames in the playoffs this season.
Playoff notes:
The Oilers did not meet the Flames in the playoffs this season.
Playoff notes:
The Oilers did not meet the Flames in the playoffs this season.
Playoff notes:
The Oilers did not meet the Flames in the playoffs this season.
The Oilers tied Minnesota Fighting Saints for the last playoff spot - both finished with a record of 38-37-3 - and, in a one-game sudden-death affair held at the neutral-site Stampede Corral in Calgary, lost 4-2 and didn't make post-season. Bill Hunter's club had beaten the Fighting Saints 5-3 in the final regular-season game, and Hunter thought that meant they were in the playoffs because they had won what was a tie-breaker in his mind. But the WHA said they had to play the one-game playoff.
Once again, the Fighting Saints, who played out of the old St. Paul Civic Center with its clear acrylic glass boards, got the best of the Oilers, this time in the WHA Western Division semifinals as seeds Nos. 2 and 3, respectively. This time, coach Harry Neale's team made short work of Edmonton, finishing them off in five games of the best-of-seven affair. Fighting Saints centre Mike (Shaky) Walton was Neale's best player that campaign; he was crowned the WHA scoring champ with 117 points.
Oilers GM Bill Hunter replaced head coach Brian Shaw with himself down the stretch, but the squad went 6-12-1 the rest of the way and missed the playoffs, finishing last in the five-team Canadian Division. Lesson learned: they should have kept Shaw.
The Oilers returned to the playoffs after finishing fourth in the Canadian Division but never had a prayer against Bobby Hull, Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson in a four-game Winnipeg Jets sweep. This was very much a Christians vs. lions affair, as the Jets finished atop the WHA with a record of 52-27-2 for 105 points, while the Oilers went 27-49-5 for 59 points.
Glen Sather started the season as captain but took over as bench boss from Bep Guidolin in the last 18 games and got the Oilers into the playoffs, where they were routed four games to one by the Houston Aeros, who featured Gordie, Mark and Marty Howe and NHLers-to-be Tery Ruskowski, Rich Preston and John Tonelli.
The Oilers finished fifth in the 10-team circuit, good enough for a respectable 79 points in 80 games, but got bounced by the New England Whalers in five games with Gordie, Mark and Marty Howe now re-located to Hartford, with Gordie and Mark notching 96 and 91 regular-season points, respectively.
The Oilers finally finished atop the WHA standings in the last year of the league's operations. There were seven remaining teams - Edmonton, Winnipeg, Quebec, New England, Cincinnati, Birmingham and Indianapolis, with the Indy Racers dropping out on Dec. 15, 1978 because they couldn't make a financial go of it. That season, touring teams from the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia played the WHA clubs and points from those games counted in the final tally. But even though the Oilers finished 11 points ahead of the second-place Nordiques that season and advanced to the league final, they didn't win the Avco Trophy - the long-time rival Winnipeg Jets beat them in six games. Of the four WHA franchises that joined the NHL the next season, the Oilers were the only one not to win the Avco Trophy.
The Oilers were put in the Smythe Division to start their NHL days, playing with the Chicago Blackhawks, the St. Louis Blues, the Vancouver Canucks, the Winnipeg Jets and the Colorado Rockies. They finished with 69 points, one back of the Canucks, to finish fourth. The top four teams in each of the four divisions made the playoffs, with the team having the fewest points starting as the No. 16 seed and drawing the club with the most points as No. 1 seed in a best-of-five series. As it turned out, the Oilers had the fewest points of the playoff clubs and drew the Philadelphia Flyers, who had started the 1979-80 campaign on a record undefeated tear, recording a point in their first 35 games (25-0-10). The Flyers swept the Oilers in three games, ultimately falling to the New York Islanders in the Stanley Cup final.
This playoff defined the early NHL Oilers, who entered the playoffs in 1980-81 as the No. 14 seed, because they shockingly KO'd the Montreal Canadiens in Round 1, sweeping Les Glorieux in three straight while backstopped by the unheralded Andy Moog in net; he gave up just six goals in the three games. Wayne Gretzky did a number on Canadiens goalie Richard Sevigny, who had foolishly said he'd put No. 99 in his hip pocket, winger Dave Hunter so infuriated the third-seeded Habs with his robust checking of Guy Lafleur that Guy Lapointe tried to hit him with a swinging helmet in a scuffle, and Jari Kurri won a tense game two with a late snipe. In Round 2, the Oilers drew the defending Cup champion Islanders and pushed them to six games, singing "Here We Go Oilers, Here We Go" on the bench on Long Island in their Game 5 win. The Islanders, who would go on to win four Cups in a row, turned the series in game four when defenceman Ken Morrow, armed with a shot that was timed with a sun-dial, dribbled the OT winner past Moog to give them a 3-1 series lead. The Oilers won a legion of new fans in this series with Al Arbour's juggernaut.
This playoff proved to be the Oilers' wake-up call, as they were shockingly ousted in the first round to the Los Angeles Kings. Wayne Gretzky had scored 92 goals and put up 212 points during the regular season, and the Oilers were 48 points better than Don Perry's Tinseltown club. But in what is known infamously in Edmonton as the Miracle on Manchester, the Oilers blew a 5-0 lead in the middle period of Game 3, with the series tied at one apiece. Steve Bozek scored in the dying seconds of regulation with their goalie Mario Lessard pulled and Daryl Evans, now a Kings' radio commentator, ripped a 30-foot shot past Grant Fuhr on Doug Smith's face-off win 2 1/2 minutes into OT for a 6-5 L.A. win. When the game was over, the Oilers looked like they'd been run over by a cement mixer.
The Oilers won the low-scoring games (3-2 twice) but lost all the high-scoring ones (10-8 in the first game, blowing a 4-1 lead 10 minutes in, then the 6-5 Game 3 loss and 7-4 in the final game). The teams had chartered back from L.A. following Game 4 on the same plane.
The series loss was an inconceivable result considering the Oilers had scored 103 more goals (417 to 314) than the Kings in regular-season play. It was the series in which Oilers assistant coach Billy Harris ripped the team for being unprepared and cavalier in their approach to playing an inferior team.
The Oilers continued their education on what it takes to be champions this campaign, making it all the way to the finals for the first time, losing only one game in their first three series along the way (against the Winnipeg Jets, the Calgary Flames and the Chicago Blackhawks) and got a lesson in what it took to win from the Islanders, who stifled them in a four-game sweep. The Oilers, who had scored 79 goals in 13 games over the first three rounds (that's six a game), potted just six in the four losses to the powerhouse Islanders, who claimed their fourth Stanley Cup in a row in beating Edmonton. The whole series was like trying to walk up a down escalator.
"When I was leaving the building, I looked into the Islanders dressing room, and they were celebrating with ice-bags on their shoulders, jaws, knees," said Oilers' defenceman Kevin Lowe, who got the visual, visceral message that skill was fine, but sacrifice was what it really took to win a Stanley Cup.
This time, the Oilers got it done against the Islanders and beat the defending champions in five games to win their first of five Cups in a glorious seven-year period.
Just as owner Peter Pocklington had boldly predicted back in 1979, his team won a Cup within their first five years in the NHL, much to the dismay of teams such as the Toronto Maple Leafs, which hadn't won (and still haven't won) since 1967.
There were some scares along the way. In Round 2, they had to go seven games to beat Badger Bob Johnson's Flames, with Calgary coming back from 3-1 down in the series to force a Game 7. Calgary won two overtime games (Game 2 and Game 6.) In Game 7, the Oilers lit up goalie Reggie Lemelin, however, and cruised to victory. The interesting thing about the first three rounds in '84: Glen Sather played both Grant Fuhr and Andy Moog in net, and Sather would need Moog to close the deal in the finals with the Islanders.
There were two pivotal moments in the final. In the first game on Long Island, Kevin McClelland, who had come over from Pittsburgh in a trade for Tom Roulston to add pugnaciousness to the lineup, snuck one past Billy Smith in the third period for the only goal of the game, with Fuhr getting the shutout. McClelland had just 10 goals all season. "Somebody yelled at Mac that he was a national hero now," Kevin Lowe said in recollection.
In Game 3, Mark Messier went end-to-end on a swashbuckling play, sliding between the defensive duo of Denis Potvin and Gord Dineen and tucking one past Smith to start a 7-1 rout. The Oilers went to Moog for the last two games when Fuhr injured his shoulder after being plowed into the end boards by Pat LaFontaine in Game 4. LaFontaine turned a 4-0 rout into a 4-2 nail-biter with two goals early in the third in game five, but Dave Lumley put it away with an empty-netter.
"Everything was a blur when the game ended. My stick, gloves, everything went in the air. I have no idea where they went," said Lowe.
It's never easy repeating with a bullseye on your back, but the Oilers got it done, whipping the Philadelphia Flyers in five games in the final. They got even for the '82 Miracle on Manchester, beating the Los Angeles Kings in Round 1, in which they scored two OT wins (courtesy Lee Fogolin and Glenn Anderson tallies in games 1 and 3, respectively).
The Oilers tortured Chicago Blackhawks goalie Murray Bannerman in the Campbell Conference final, scoring 11, 10, eight and seven goals in their four wins. When Bannerman threw his goalie stick into the crowd after the final tilt of the six-game series, the Chicago Stadium fans threw it back. "It'll probably go through his legs," yelled one disgruntled customer. After the 11-2 Game 1 wall-papering, Hawks coach Orval Tessier said his club needed a "heart transplant," which appropriately made his players ready to grab the coach by the throat.
In the Stanley Cup final, a comedy of errors plagued the team ahead of the series opener in Philadelphia: Glenn Anderson missed the plane to Philly for the opener, the team bus taking the Oilers to practice got lost, then the bus broke down in front of someone's yard, and the Oilers went inside the fellow's place and watched TV or threw a baseball around. It was a harbinger of a 4-1 setback in Game 1. But they got their act together after that and bounced back to win the next four to claim their second straight Cup title.
Nobody will forget Oilers defenceman Steve Smith's own-goal on goalie Grant Fuhr in Game 7 of the team's Round 2 series against their nemesis, the Calgary Flames, which effectively ended their quest for a third straight Stanley Cup. The young Smith, substituting for the injured Lee Fogolin, was behind his net six minutes into the third period, attempting a long head-man pass when his bobbled breakout attempt bounced off the left leg of Fuhr, who wasn't guarding the post. "What the heck just happened ... how is the puck in our net?" Oilers' associate coach John Muckler asked.
Perry Berezan, the last Flames' player to touch the puck before Smith's pass, got credit for the 3-2 winner. After the game, to his credit, Smith took on all-comers as wave after wave of reporters descended on his locker stall. He got bags and bags of mail that summer from kids and supportive fans and became a bit of a folk hero because of the flub.
The Oilers swung a flurry of deals in '87, sending away in separate transactions former captain Lee Fogolin, Wayne Gretzky's bodyguard Dave Semenko and the tough-as-nails Don Jackson, getting in return Norm Lacombe and the rights to a little puck-moving Finnish defenceman named Rexi Ruotsalainen. GM Glen Sather also traded a draft pick to Minnesota for winger Kent Nilsson at the deadline and immediately slapped the hugely-talented but enigmatic former Flames sniper on a line with Mark Messier and Glenn Anderson. Arguably, this was the fastest line in NHL history.Then Oilers beat the Flyers in a thrilling seven-game final, outlasting Philly goalie Ron Hextall, who won the Conn Smythe trophy but incurred the wrath of the NHL and Oilers fans with a ripping two-hander on Nilsson that got him suspended following the playoffs. "Wasn't that hard," Hextall said years later, feeling Nilsson had milked it a tad.
The Oilers led the Staley Cup final three games to one against an injury-riddled but never-quit Flyers and their psychological coach Mike Keenan, who had somehow seconded the Stanley Cup and put it on a table in his club's dressing room before games 5 and 6 as inspiration. Before Game 7, Keenan tried it again at Northlands Coliseum but couldn't find it. "It's on the way down the road with the lions and tigers after the circus left town," kidded Oilers' equipment man Lyle Kulchisky, who had actually hid it away. In the final game, Anderson beat Hextall late in the third with a shot through the goalie's wickets to put it away.
It was a turbulent Oilers season, starting very early. They dealt Paul Coffey to Pittsburgh over money in November, getting young winger Craig Simpson in return, and goalie Andy Moog refused to sign a new contract, opting instead to play for the 1988 Canadian Olympic team. Moog was later traded for future Conn Smythe Trophy winner Bill Ranford and winger Geoff Courtnall. Ranford backed up Grant Fuhr.
Before the Oilers beat the Bruins in the finals, they polished off Calgary four straight in Round 2, which featured Wayne Gretzky's shorthanded OT slapper in Game 2 that sailed by Mike Vernon - one of No. 99's all-time favourite goals. It gave the Oilers a 2-0 series lead following the opening pair of games in Calgary, and they made short work of the Flames thereafter.
The Oilers beat the Bruins in the Stanley Cup final for their fourth title in five years, in a four-game sweep with an asterisk. It actually went five games, with Game 4 on May 24, 1988, wiped out with the score 3-3 in the second period. A power transformer in the city's north end blew and the old Garden went dark after the clubs had already skated in fog-like conditions much of the night because the humidity was so high in the building.
"We didn't have any light in our room except for some from the TV cameras and we were sending out for pizzas," former Oilers' equipment man Lyle Kulchisky said.
The game was cancelled, the NHL moved the contest to Edmonton, and the Oilers won it 6-3, ending the series. Nobody knew Kevin Lowe had played with three broken ribs on his left side since Ray Neufeld hit him in the first playoff round with the Winnipeg Jets. Nobody knew when Gretzky posed for a group picture after getting the Cup that it was his final game in an Oilers jersey. He left for Los Angeles 2-1/2 months later.
The Oilers went down to Wayne Gretzky and the Kings in Round 1, with Los Angeles taking the last three games behind goalie Kelly Hrudey. It was a difficult series for No. 99 and the Oilers, who would have done anything to avoid playing one another, especially in the opening round. The Oilers had only lost in Round 1 of the playoffs three times in their first 10 years of NHL post-season play, and two of those series losses came at the hands of the Kings. Kevin Lowe, who hit everything that moved in his NHL career, admittedly said he didn't have much stomach for nailing his buddy Gretzky. "It was tough," Lowe said.
The Oilers won the Stanley Cup minus Gretzky, beating Ray Bourque and the Boston Bruins in five games in the final but not before some scary playoff moments in the lead-up to their fifth Cup. It started in Round 1 when they fell behind three games to one to the Winnipeg Jets. Winnipeg's Finnish assistant coach Alpo Suhonen made the mistake in the papers of saying the Oilers looked confused, and grabbing at any psychological straw they could, Edmonton clawed back and won the series in seven. Unheralded centre Mark Lamb had two game-winners in the series, including one in OT in Game 2.
In Round 3, they were trailing the Chicago Blackhawks 2-1 with game four at the madhouse Stadium when Mark Messier took over. He grabbed his teammates and the series by the throat in an unbelieveably riveting performance, getting three points in a 4-2 win and abusing any Chicago player who dared look at him the wrong way. "He could have had a penalty on every shift," griped Blackhawks coach Mike Keenan, who later had Messier on his Cup-winning 1994 Rangers squad and appreciated The Moose a lot more. The Oilers won the last three games of their Campbell Conference final series against the Blackhawks and had an easy time against the Bruins in the final - following Game 1, anyway.
Oilers winger Petr Klima got the winner in the Stanley Cup opener with five minutes left in the third OT frame, when he slid one past goalie Andy Moog, using Craig MacTavish as a decoy on a 2-on-1 break. Klima had sat on the bench for about three hours because coach John Muckler didn't like his effort. "I felt like the doorman," said Klima, who busied himself opening and closing the bench gate as the periods dragged on. The Oilers won Game 2 on Jari Kurri's hat-trick en route to claiming their fifth Cup, the only one on the road. Family, friends and rats in the Garden dressing room. Much more subdued than the first four Cup wins.
The Oilers somehow got to the Campbell Conference final once again, but this time, they were playing on fumes. They outlasted the Calgary Flames in seven games in the opening round when Esa Tikkanen's bad-angle shot seven minutes into OT glanced off defenceman Frank Musil and past goalie Mike Vernon in the stirring final game. The Oilers had trailed the game 3-0 at one point. The series caught the imagination of everybody and, truthfully, was way more riveting than the Cup final between Pittsburgh and Minnesota.
Not to be outdone by the hair-raising win over the Flames, the Oilers battled through a six-game affair with Wayne Gretzky's Los Angeles Kings in Round 2, with four of those contests going to overtime. They won three of them, two of them in double OT (courtesy the much-maligned Petr Klima and the pest Tikkanen) and got the series-clinching win on a Craig MacTavish's goal past goalie Kelly Hrudey.
They were out of gas and it showed in Round 3 - the conference final -- against Minnesota. They bowed out of the post-season in losing to the North Stars in five games.
They were losing stars left, right and centre - Mark Messier, Grant Fuhr and Glenn Anderson, all who've had their sweater numbers retired by Edmonton, were dealt in the preseason - but the Oilers lasted in the NHL postseason until the Campbell Conference final once again before going down in four straight games to coach Mike Keenan's Chicago Blackhawks, who featured Eddie Belfour in net and forward dynamo Jeremy Roenick, who scored the winning goals in games 3 and 4. Belfour would be a constant thorn in the Oilers' sides for years to come, particularly at the turn of the century in playoff play as a member of the Dallas Stars.
The Oilers beat Gretzky's L.A. Kings in Round 1 and the Vancouver Canucks in the Round 2 Smythe Division final, both taking six games. New playoff heroes emerged for the Oilers, with Joe Murphy netting two game-winners, one in OT, against the Canucks. Once again, however, the team was spent by the time they reached the conference final. Little did anybody know that the May 22, 1992, Game 4 loss would be the last Oilers playoff game until April 16, 1997. Oilers fans enjoyed a charmed life for a dozen years, then they endured a post-season drought when their beloved team finished 20th, 23rd, 22nd and 21st overall in league play the next four seasons.
The Oilers did not qualify for the playoffs this season.
The Oilers did not qualify for the playoffs this season.
The Oilers did not qualify for the playoffs this season.
The Oilers did not qualify for the playoffs this season.
The Oilers returned to the NHL playoffs following four seasons trolling near the league's basement, lasting two rounds. They lost out to star goalie Patrick Roy's Colorado Avalanche, but the big story of Edmonton's postseason was how they eliminated the No. 2 Western Conference seed Dallas Stars.
The Oilers stunned the NHL world by somehow beating Dallas in seven hair-raising opening-round games. Dallas amassed 104 points in regular season, while the seventh-seeded Oilers had collected 81. In Game 3, completely shackled and down 3-0 with four minutes left in the contest, the Oilers somehow forced overtime, with most of the crowd already in the parking lots and trying to stampede back into the building. Checker Kelly Buchberger won it against former Oilers goalie Andy Moog halfway through the first OT in one of those Ripley's Believe It Or Not deals.
In Game 5, Ryan Smyth notched the game's only goal early in the second OT as Curtis Joseph out-dueled Moog.
Then came the Game 7 stunner, in which Joseph - known affectionately league-wide as Cujo - robbed Joe Nieuwendyk with a staggering blocker stop in his crease (maybe the best save any goalie has ever made in post-season) and Todd Marchant raced down seconds later, stepped around stumbling Stars defenceman Grant Ledyard and whipped a far side shot past Moog for a 4-3 OT victory to clinch the series.
"In those days, you'd be playing a team with a payroll $30 million or $40 million more than you. This was big," said then-top line Oilers centre Doug Weight, who fed Marchant for the winner. "All I remember was Toddy flying and I got him the puck."
As satisfying as the Oilers beating the Dallas Stars was in 1997, knocking off the game's second-winningest goalie Patrick Roy and the mighty Avalanche a year later was arguably an even-bigger feat. The Oilers, who had dealt Jason Arnott to New Jersey for Bill Guerin halfway through the season and had peddled rugged defenceman Bryan Marchment to Tampa Bay for Roman Hamrlik, were down three games to one in the first-round series against the powerful Avs but came back to win three straight. Curtis Joseph recorded back-to-back shutouts in games 6 and 7 (the last one 4-0 in Denver, which turned the building into a library). Cujo gave up only one goal in his last nine periods against a team that was 15 points better in regular-season, and that had won the Stanley Cup two years before and would win again in 2001. The Oilers fell to Dallas in Round 2, but again, they proved a point knocking off a much superior team in one playoff round. Following the season, however, the Oilers watched free-agent Cujo sign a four-year, $16-million deal with the Toronto Maple Leafs. A big loss.
Top Oilers scorer Doug Weight suffered a knee injury this season and could only play 43 games, but the team somehow snuck into the playoffs anyway, going out four straight to Dallas in the first round. They lost all four games by a single goal, the last one when Joe Nieuwendyk tipped a Sergei Zubov shot past recently acquired goalie Tommy Salo with 2-1/2 minutes to go in the third overtime. Salo came from the New York Islanders for Mats Lindgren and an eighth-round pick that turned into defenceman Radek Martinek. Salo went 8-2-2 in his 12 starts down the regular-season stretch.
The Oilers featured a popgun attack this campaign, with only player Doug Weight recording more than 54 points, but the exceptional goaltending of Tommy Salo - who sported a sparkling 2.33 goals-against average in 70 games - propelled the team into the playoffs. Trouble was they drew Dallas again in the opening playoff round, and Ed Belfour outplayed Salo as the Oilers lost in five games. The season began with a 15-foot bronze statue of the retired Wayne Gretzky erected outside the front doors of Rexall Place, with his No. 99 jersey retired and pulled up to the rafters. At season's end, GM Glen Sather bolted for the New York Rangers because he couldn't get along with a couple of members of the Oilers' ownership group.
Push the rewind button. The Oilers lost again to Dallas in round one, this time in six games, with the Stars winning three games in overtime, the most crippling one being Game 5 when current Carolina Hurricanes coach Kirk Muller beat Salo in extra time. Belfour again bested Salo in the goalie battle, an annual spring rite. To get to the playoffs, new Oilers GM Kevin Lowe did some horse-trading, shockingly moving Billy Guerin, who was due to be an unrestricted free-agent following the season, to Boston for Anson Carter. Guerin had 21 points in 22 games at the time. Carter was good, but he was no Guerin. Salo was terrific again in regular-season play (eight shutouts), while up front, Doug Weight had 90 points and Ryan Smyth 31 goals. The Oilers enjoyed a nine-game winning streak from Feb. 20 to March 13, giving up just 13 goals in that span - the run helped solidify their playoff spot.
The Oilers did not qualify for the playoffs this season.
After missing the post-season in 2001-02, with Doug Weight traded to the St. Louis Blues over salary concerns, the Oilers bounced back but lost yet again to Dallas in the first round. They'd won two of the first three but stumbled after that, eventually falling in six games. Tommy Salo, who had an ordinary regular-season (2.71 goals-against average), put up a 3.15 average in the playoffs. To get to the postseason, the Oilers saw Todd Marchant enjoy a career year (60 points) and parlay that into a big free-agent contract with Columbus the following summer. To shake things up, the Oilers pulled off a couple of late deals, moving defenceman Janne Niinimaa to the Islanders for wingers Raffi Torres and Brad Isbister, and sent Anson Carter to the Rangers for forward Radek Dvorak and defenceman Cory Cross.
The Oilers did not qualify for the playoffs this season.
And then came a miracle Stanley Cup run that aroused the magic and memories of the glory years. The Oilers came within one win of a Cinderella finish, losing to the Carolina Hurricanes in the deciding game of a thrilling seven-game final after coming back from being down three games to one to force the winner-take-all in Raleigh, N.C.
Everything worked for the Oilers, who finished the campaign with 95 points, the most points they'd run up since '87-88, when they put up 99. It was good for just eighth place in the ultra-competitive West, however, but GM Kevin Lowe had pushed all the right buttons.The Oilers stunned the top-seeded Red Wings in Round 1 by veering away from their usual forechecking style and adopting the trap. They stayed in the neutral zone and thoroughly frustrated the Wings, who went down in six games. Dwayne Roloson also greatly outplayed Detroit goalie Manny Legace, who patrolled the Detroit net with Chris Osgood hurt.
In Round 2, Shawn Horcoff saved them against the San Jose Sharks. After losing the first two games, Horcoff banged one home two minutes into the third overtime of Game 3. The Oilers fed off the heroics to win three more in a row and win the series, outscoring the Sharks 14-6 over the last three games. Roli the Goalie gave up only 10 goals in the six-game affair.
In the Western Conference final, the Oilers went into Anaheim and beat them twice 3-1, and playoff hero Fernando Pisani notched two game-winners in the series to give him a total of three in the playoffs.
In the Cup final, Roloson was hurt in Game 1 when Oilers defenceman Marc-Andre Bergeron pushed Ladd into him. Little-used backup Ty Conklin gave up that game's winner to Rod Brind'Amour when he got tied up behind the net with captain Jason Smith. Third-string goalie Jussi Markkanen, who hadn't played in months, got the call after that. Down three games to one in the series, Pisani put the overtime winner past Hurricanes goalie Cam Ward on a breakaway while shorthanded. Game 6 saw the Oilers walloped the Canes 4-0 at Rexall Place as Pisani got his 14th playoff goal and fifth game-winner of the playoffs. In Game 7, the Oilers were nervous out of the gate and fell behind 2-0. Pisani came within inches of tying it in the third, and Carolina forward Justin Williams ended their dream with an empty-netter.
At season's end, Chris Pronger floored the franchise when he shockingly said he wanted out of Edmonton and was traded to Anaheim. Michael Peca left as a free-agent as did Samsonov and Spacek.
The Oilers haven't made the playoffs since.
The Oilers did not qualify for the playoffs this season.
The Oilers did not qualify for the playoffs this season.
The Oilers did not qualify for the playoffs this season.
The Oilers did not qualify for the playoffs this season.
The Oilers did not qualify for the playoffs this season.
The Oilers did not qualify for the playoffs this season.
There would be no NHL Oilers without Bill Hunter, who chose the team name and shepherded the club through its first three World Hockey Association seasons.
Hunter was larger-than-life, lots of bluster with a carnival barker's mentality for what he was trying to sell. While promoters Dennis Murphy and Gary Davidson came up with the idea of a WHA, Hunter and his buddy, Benny Hatskin, who lived in Winnipeg, did most of the groundwork for starting the league and coming up with the owners.
Hunter failed to get an expansion NHL franchise or buy a team (Pittsburgh Penguins) and move it here, but he dived in to set up the WHA. He didn't have a lot of his own money in the Oilers, but he surrounded himself with people who did, like Dr. Charles Allard, who founded Allarcom-TV, and Zane Feldman (Crosstown Motors) and a group of others that included Blue Willow restauranteur Vic Mah.
Allard, a physician by trade who started buying up land in what would become Riverbend, paying $400 an acre and selling it for $50,000, was the main money man for the Oilers but stayed in the background, letting Hunter have the titular label of owner.
Hunter, who got the nickname Wild Bill after a run-in with a referee one night, owned the junior Medicine Hat Tigers in the 1950s and the Edmonton Oil Kings, starting in 1965. When he got on the WHA train in 1971, he was in his element in a pro league. The team was called the Alberta Oilers in the first WHA season in 1972-73, then the Edmonton Oilers in Year 2. He was famous for his news conferences, always looking for a photo opportunity. When he signed Jim Harrison after the centre left the Toronto Maple Leafs, he had the player wheel into the news conference with a bundle of cash in a shopping cart.
In his last news conference as one of the owners, he invited the media to a downtown Edmonton hotel to say goodbye, and locked the doors.
"I don't want you a...holes leaving. You're going to listen to what I have to say," he bellowed, with a twinkle in his eye.
Was the wheeler-dealer real-estate guy from Vancouver who at one time bought more than 30 Eatons stores across Canada and the Omni complex in Atlanta that he sold to Ted Turner. He bought the Oilers in 1975 from majority owner Charles Allard - they had done business together because Skalbania was an engineer by trade and Allard a surgeon/real estate developer - and Allard's other partners, including Bill Hunter. Skalbania said he lost $300,000 the first month he owned the team, which is why he brought in Peter Pocklington as a part-owner the next season. The team's debt load was reportedly over $1.5 million.
Skalbania got out entirely in 1977. He reportedly got a $150,000 diamond ring off Pocklington's wife Eva's finger over dinner one night; at least 10 Pocklington paintings, including many Group of Seven works; a Rolls Royce from the Great Gatsby movie, starring Robert Redford, and two more Rolls.
Skalbania would later become much more famous, owning the WHA's Indianapolis Racers and bringing aboard a then mop-haired, skinny 17-year-old Wayne Gretzky in June 1978. Gretzky signed the seven-year, $1.75-million personal-services contract on a sheet of foolscap on the plane into Edmonton on June 6 for a secret news conference with CFRN's Rod Phillips and the Journal's Jim Matheson. He wanted the personal-service deal because he felt a merger with the NHL was coming and surmised that his Racers wouldn't be one of the teams included in the move. But he felt he could get some renumeration down the line from the WHA survivors, or if he sold the kid.
"If it doesn't work out, Wayne can be a deckhand on my boat for that money," said a joking Skalbania.
With his Racers was taking a bath nightly at the gate (they had about only 2,300 season-ticket holders), he traded Gretzky to Pocklington's Oilers after just eight games with Indianapolis in 1978.
Was soon called Peter Puck shortly after he became the owner. He first made his millions selling cars, and later got into real estate and meat packing plants and trust companies. But his hockey team was what got him his notoriety. He was brash, loved the TV cameras, and was all about the big splash, from signing Wayne Gretzky on the ice to his 10-year, $3-million contract on the teenager's 18th birthday in 1978 to trumpet that the Oilers, once they got into the NHL in 1979, would win a Stanley Cup in five years.
He was right on the money about the first championship after giving Gretzky his dough with the entire clan on the ice with a birthday cake.
Pocklington, who made no bones about having a large ego, basked in the glory of the Oilers in their early NHL days. Selling Mustangs at Westown Ford was fine, and so was distributing milk (Palm Dairies), but not as much fun as being the ringleader of a travelling circus with not just Gretzky but five other kids who would later make the Hall of Fame - Mark Messier, Jari Kurri, Paul Coffey, Grant Fuhr and Glenn Anderson.
After that, fans were slapping a black 10-gallon hat on Pocklington's head. He didn't win many friends in Edmonton when he said Gretzky was faking his tears at the final press conference at Molson House before No. 99 flew to L.A. for his coming-out party, or saying that Gretzky had an ego the size of Manhattan.
He got $15 million US from Kings' owner Bruce McNall, who would later wind up in jail for bank fraud, and the team got Jimmy Carson, Martin Gelinas and three first-round draft picks. To this day, Pocklington steadfastly says it wasn't about the money - that he needed to keep his other companies going - but there's no denying he was handsomely rewarded for moving the 27-year-old Gretzky, who would play another 11 years (Kings, St. Louis Blues and New York Rangers) before retiring. Pocklington says he dealt Gretzky because his star forward was going to become a free agent who could have walked away.
"I expected all my businesses to pay their way and that included the hockey team," Pocklington said in a National Post commentary. "I knew in another year and a half, Wayne was going to be a very expensive hockey player and I wouldn't be able to keep him."
Gretzky, in an ESPN series of star athlete profiles, confirmed that his contract was an issue, but he has long said that when news started trickling out that he might be traded, he felt blindsided. In the end, the Oilers won another Stanley Cup in 1990 without Gretzky, but it was still Pocklington's darkest hockey hour.
After Peter Pocklington ran out of cash, Cal Nichols, who made his millions with Gasland, stepped in to save the Oilers. He gathered a group of 38 investors, and at the last minute stopped the Oilers from being dragged off to Houston, where former stock trader Les Alexander had an NBA team and wanted to add an NHL club to his portfolio. He'd been trying to get an NHL expansion team but was rebuffed.
Pocklington originally had Alexander interested for $120 million Cdn. Alexander said he'd keep the team in Edmonton as long as the rink lease with Northlands was terminated and attendance was satisfactory and they could shortly find local ownership, but city council balked at Alexander's terms (especially the rink lease). So Alexander went directly to the Alberta Treasury Branch with the same $120-million pitch. The ATB was all ears, even though Alexander was going to back up the moving vans and get the Oilers to Houston, but decided to give Nichols and his group time to match Alexander's offer. In March '98, the Edmonton Investors Group came up with same $7 million Cdn downpayment, and 40 days later paid the ATB another $100 million Cdn.
The 38 investors (all in for different percentages) ran the gamut from those in the oil and gas industry; the car and trucking business; glass (Ed Bean, Crystal Glass); computer software (Bruce Saville); engineering (Jim Hole, Lockerbie and Hole); product distribution to the auto, heavy trucking and agricultural sectors (Gary Gregg's Gregg Distributors)' newspapers (the Journal); and even a comic-book guy, Todd McFarlane (Spawn), who went on to design the team's third jersey logo (sharp blades, five rivets to signify the five Cup wins, inner and outer gears, and an oil drop) with blue and silver colours.
It was the largest ownership group in the NHL, and the largest in pro sport outside the NFL's Green Bay Packers. On the surface, it was an unwieldy group - some with large ownership shares (Saville, Hole, Gregg, Bean, Nichols) and others with $1-million slices of the pie. But with Nichols as the front man, it worked, although it was very much a small-market, tight-budget operation with the odd cash call.
In 2007, Daryl Katz came calling, with the first of four offers for the club starting at $145 million. EIG ceased to be on June 18, 2008, after some of the shareholders (Gregg, Bill Butler, Jakob Ambrosius and Brian Nilsson) originally tried to mount a rival group to match Katz's offer.
Without the EIG's community effort, there would be no Oilers here. They would be in Houston or somewhere else.
Daryl Katz grew up an Oilers fan during their glory days and satisfied his hankering to buy the club when the Edmonton Investors Group finally accepted his fourth offer of $200 million in January 2008.
EIG had two strong factions - Cal Nichols, the front man for the group, and Gary Gregg on the one side, and Bruce Saville and Jim Hole on the other. Nichols, according to a former member of the EIG group, was the impetus for the sale to Katz, who went to high school at Jasper Place and got a law degree at the University of Alberta before diving into the family pharmaceutical business.
Katz offered $145 million to start the bidding in May 2007, upped it to $185 million, then $188 million, and finally got the club for $200 million. He's around the rink a fair bit with his son, who has also shown up on stage at the NHL entry draft with the first overall pick.
Katz, 51, has spent considerable time trying to get a new downtown building - something the EIG was also planning, it should be pointed out.
Katz, who owns the Rexall drug stores, along with the Medicine Shoppe chain, is reported to be among the 20 richest people in Canada with a net worth of at least $2 billion.
Was the general manager of the Edmonton Oil Kings junior team before the World Hockey Association came along. He put together the Oilers' first team for 1972-73 season, protecting four NHL players - Bobby Clarke, Norm Ullman, Phil Myre and Bruce MacGregor - in the inaugural WHA draft. Only the winger MacGregor, who had been with the professional Edmonton Flyers before getting to the NHL, played for the Oilers during Hunter's tenure. Ullman came to the WHA later.
Hunter's first WHA team was heavy on former Oil Kings and Alberta-born guys. He knew them best, but it was little bit of overkill. Doug Barrie, Bob Falkenberg, MacGregor, Ron Walters, Eddie Joyal, Ron Anderson, Dennis Kassian, Derek Harker, Al Hamilton, Ross Perkins and Bob McAneeley were all former junior players under Hunter's watchful eye when he owned the Oil Kings. He also brought in Jimmy Harrison, the Maple Leafs' centre who was born in Glendon. That was his best move. Harrison scored 10 points one game against the New York Raiders at the old Edmonton Gardens in January 1973. He finished with 86 points in only 66 games for 14th place in the high-scoring WHA, which Andre Lacroix led with 124 points.
Hunter could put teams together. The Oilers finished with the sixth-best record in their first season in the WHA. But he was impatient, especially with his coaches. He continually thought he could do a better job, so kept parachuting in to work the bench. He hired Ray Kinasewich, the Memorial Cup-winning Oil Kings coach, for the first WHA campaign, but Kinasewich was gone after 45 games. The next season, Hunter hired the flamboyant Brian Shaw, who once coached Hall of Famer Marcel Dionne in junior, but he was out the door 59 games into his second season. Then it was the legendary Clare Drake, who took a sabbatical from his University of Alberta Golden Bears' teams, for the '75-76 season, but was fired after 48 games.
Hunter could always be counted on to do something daffy. One time, he was back in Edmonton while the Oilers were in Hartford, Conn., and wanted to give his club a pep-talk, so he set up a conference call over a speakerphone. He told the players to gather in a meeting room at their hotel. The players dutifully filed in for the rah-rah speech, but they didn't hang around long. As the call wore on, Hunter was basically talking to himself.
At his final news conference as general manager, he locked the doors of the banquet room at a downtown hotel.
"I don't want you a...holes leaving," he bellowed at the media. "You're going to listen to everything I have to say."
His claim to fame before he became the Oilers' second general manager was being the youngest NHL player, getting into a game at age 16 in November 1942 with the Boston Bruins. Boston's famous Kraut Line of Woody Dumart, Milt Schmidt and Bobby Bauer were doing military duty at the time. Guidolin was later traded to the Detroit Red Wings for forward Billy Taylor, who once had seven assists in a game but was later kicked out of the NHL for gambling.
Guidolin had never been a professional general manager before taking on the dual title of GM-coach with the Oilers after Bill Hunter moved on. He could coach - both junior and the pros with Boston and the Kansas City Scouts - but as a manager, he was in over his head. He knew little about the WHA's players. In fact, he called up a reporter one morning not to berate him for anything he'd written but to ask if he knew anything about a couple of players on another team.
Was Foster Hewitt's colourman on the TV broadcasts at the 1972 Canada-Russia series. He spent only one year as the Edmonton general manager, during Glen Sather's first year as the Oilers' coach.
He had also been GM of the Indianapolis Racers and, in his one season with the Oilers, brought in Ron Chipperfield and Blair MacDonald, who would become the NHL team's first and second captains, respectively, along with Minnesota-born defenceman Joe Micheletti, who has gone on to a bright broadcasting career, currently working as the New York Rangers TV commentator.
Conacher, the son of Lionel (The Big Train) Conacher - Canada's athlete of the first half century - had a brief NHL career, winning a Stanley Cup ring with the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1967. He got into TV work, then management, and later became manager of Maple Leaf Gardens.
Contrary to popular belief, Larry Gordon and not Glen Sather was the Oilers general manager when Edmonton got into the NHL in 1979. Gordon was the GM when the Oilers got Wayne Gretzky from Indianapolis during the last WHA season. He was also responsible for the Oilers' protected list for the NHL-WHA merger and he kept No. 99 and Bengt Gustafsson. The Swedish centre was ruled ineligible and went on to have a fine career with the Washington Capitals.
After Gordon, who was the WHA's executive director before he came to the Oilers, left the team in June 1980, he ran Edmonton's main farm club in Wichita, Kan., in the Central Hockey League. Then he purchased the Muskegon Mohawks for $1 in 1984 and built the team into a powerhouse in the International Hockey League.
Gordon now lives in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, the same place where former Oilers' amateur scouting head Barry Fraser resides.
Was the Oilers general manager for 20 years, starting in June 1980 and ending in 2000, when he felt his control seeping away because of perceived interference from some members of the Edmonton Investment Group. He moved to the New York Rangers for what, some said, was $5 million a year and has been there ever since.
The cigar-smoking Sather grew up in Wainwright, but has lived in Banff during the summers since he was a role-playing NHL winger. He's worth a lot of money - some said he had more than his owner, Peter Pocklington - but he's been best at putting teams together. He also had a great scout, Barry Fraser, in the Oilers' early NHL days, and gave Fraser free rein to draft Jari Kurri and Glenn Anderson in the fourth round and Andy Moog in the seventh. Sather also had a gut feeling for Mark Messier when the youngster was putting up no numbers with the Cincinnati Stingers. He made sure they took him the third round in 1980.
Sather was in charge of the Oilers' first NHL team, culling the list of NHL organizations and getting guys like Dave Lumley and Pat Hughes from the Montreal Canadiens. They would eventually be part of his first Stanley Cup-winning team in 1984. He also picked up a rock-hard defenceman named Colin Campbell, who gave them some abrasiveness right off the bat. Later, he was a master at making trades. He got a goalie named Ron Low from the Quebec Nordiques for his first captain, Ron Chipperfield, and Low helped the Oilers make the playoffs, going 8-2-1 down the stretch. He traded skill centre Tom Roulston to the Pittsburgh Penguins for Kevin McClelland, who scored the biggest goal in Oilers' history at the time (the only goal in a 1-0 win over the New York Islanders in Game 1 of the 1984 Cup final on Long Island).
He dealt a third-round draft pick for Kent Nilsson in '87; and Gord Sherven and Terry Martin for Mark Napier, who had 35 points in 33 games and another 10 playoff points after coming from Minnesota North Stars in '85. At the urging of his good friend, Boston GM Harry Sinden, he took a chance on a troubled Boston centre named Craig MacTavish, who won four Stanley Cups and became their coach for almost a decade.
Sather was the Oilers' GM when Wayne Gretzky was dealt, but he always said: "That was a sale."
All in all, he traded six Hall of Famers - Gretzky, Messier, Kurri, Anderson, Paul Coffey and Fuhr, in large part because the Oilers couldn't afford them. He also dealt the Oilers' first draft pick, Kevin Lowe, to the Rangers and struck out, getting a slow-footed Russian forward Roman Oksiuta.
But almost all of his trades worked. Getting Bugsy Watson to coach to start the second NHL season was a mistake. Watson wanted to play older players and didn't much like Kurri, for instance. About six weeks into the season, Sather pulled the plug on his friend. Hiring George Burnett as his coach rather than Low in '94 was an error, too. Burnett proved to be too rigid for NHLers.
Was the Oilers' first NHL draft pick and their third NHL general manager, succeeding Glen Sather when he hiked off to the New York Rangers. He was on the job for eight seasons, with a roller-coaster ride of emotions - the playoffs in his first season, the Cinderella ride to the Stanley Cup final against the Carolina Hurricanes in 2006, but out of the post-season five times in the dog-eat-dog Western Conference, including missing the playoffs the year after they almost won the Cup. He handed things over to Steve Tambellini in 2008.
Lowe made some blockbuster moves, trading for Chris Pronger and Michael Peca in 2005. He dealt captain Doug Weight to the St. Louis Blues in a money situation in 2001; made a big splash to sign hometown kid Mike Comrie in 2000, then they had an acrimonious split 2-1/2 years later and he moved the small forward to the Philadelphia Flyers after Comrie said he was living in a goldfish bowl. Lowe also traded Billy Guerin (money) for Anson Carter in 2001, his most popular player Ryan Smyth (money) to the New York Islanders in 2007, captain Jason Smith to the Flyers the same year, and Matt Greene and Jarret Stoll to the Los Angeles Kings for Lubomir Visnovsky.
He gambled on a first-round draft for goalie Dwayne Roloson, who was stunningly good in the 2006 playoffs and got good return for Sergei Samsonov in an '06 trade deadline deal, but the second-round pick they gave to Boston was turned into Milan Lucic.
Lowe would have to send Pronger to the Anaheim Ducks in 2006 when the future Hall of Famer said he couldn't live in Edmonton. Dealing Smyth was a battle over a few dollars and the Oilers got Robert Nilsson, Ryan O'Marra and a first-round draft pick (Alex Plante). Smyth is back, but Nilsson was in Russia last season, O'Marra is in Finland now, and Plante is in Oklahoma City.
Lowe's tenure will be forever stamped by the rogue Dustin Penner signing in 2007, as well. Looking for an offensive jump start, Lowe tried to sign Buffalo's Tomas Vanek to a seven-year, $50-million deal, but the Sabres matched it. Then he went after his Plan B, Penner, knowing the Ducks were vulnerable. He knew they liked Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry more and he made a five-year, $21.5-million pitch for Penner.
Ducks general manager Brian Burke was furious and let Penner walk away. Lowe and Burke, who had been buddies, didn't speak for a long time after that and Burke publicly said he wanted to fight Lowe. Penner had one very good year (63 points, 32 goals in 2009-10), when he was a Canadian Olympic team possibility, but was not a good fit, at all. The fans got on him and Tambellini moved him to the Los Angeles Kings in his fourth year.
When Lowe quit as general manager in July 2008 and moved upstairs to be president of hockey operations, he tabbed Steve Tambellini as his replacement. The two had worked together on preparing Canada's Olympic squad in 2002 and with Canada's World Cup team in 2004. Tambellini, who had been with the Vancouver Canucks for 17 years and was assistant GM to Dave Nonis and Mike Gillis, got a four-year contract and signed an undisclosed extension last summer.
Tambellini had Craig MacTavish as his first coach, but only for one season. MacTavish stepped aside with a year to go on his contract. That started a coaching carousel.
Tambellini went old school, bringing in Pat Quinn, who had a long relationship with him in Vancouver. Quinn was between NHL coaching gigs after the Toronto Maple Leafs had let him go, but was fresh from coaching Canada's world junior team to a gold medal at Ottawa. The coaching hire, while seemingly inspired at the time, didn't work. The Oilers finished dead last in 2009-10, and Tom Renney, who was hired along with Quinn, took over for another two seasons in their rebuilding effort. After two more years out of the playoffs (finishing 30th and 29th), Ralph Krueger, who was hired by Renney to be his associate coach, takes over.
Tambellini decided after the 62-point '09-10 season to rip everything apart and go young. There was lots of pain and very little gain in the standings. Today, the Oilers are a team that everybody in the NHL likes because of its young guns, but is still years away from winning a Stanley Cup. The Oilers have had three straight first overall picks in Taylor Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Nail Yakupov (when they won the lottery after finishing 29th, beating out the Columbus Blue Jackets for the top pick).
The Oilers have tons of promise, but still no playoff games since their wonderful Stanley Cup run in 2006.
Having failed to make the playoffs during his tenure as general manager, Steve Tambellini was replaced by Craig MacTavish on April 15, 2013.
Having failed to make the playoffs during his tenure as general manager, Steve Tambellini was replaced by Craig MacTavish on April 15, 2013.
Was probably more well-known for owning the local Stork Diaper Service than coaching the Edmonton Oilers in their first season in the World Hockey Association because he lasted only 45 games until general manager Bill Hunter stepped in.
The daffy thing was the gentlemanly Kinasewich stayed on to run the practices while Hunter was behind the bench on game nights and Kinasewich moved up to the press box.
Kinasewich, 79, had significant success as a junior coach, taking Hunter's Oil Kings with defenceman Al Hamilton, who would later captain the Oilers, to the 1966 Memorial Cup. He also coached the
Houston Apollos in the Central Hockey League and Salt Lake Golden Eagles in the Western Hockey League before the Oilers' job came along.
He was also a very good scorer as a minor-league pro in the American Hockey League. He had three separate stints with the Edmonton Flyers and had 44- and 42-goal seasons with the Seattle Americans, with Val Fonteyne on his wing. Fonteyne (one minor penalty) played for Kinasewich in the Oilers' first season.
Was the most colourful Oilers' coach in their 40-year history.
He liked clothes (nice shirts, white shoes) and lots of them, fancy cars and extra big cigars.
After one Oilers' road game at Chicago in the WHA in the mid-1970s, the team bus had to wait while Shaw returned from a shopping trip. He bought a cape one day, although he didn't wear it on the bench.
As his good friend Ken Hodge said: "He dressed for success and had a distinguished look about him. The cigars needed to be big to fit his image."
His look aside, Shaw was a good coach. He started in midget with the Jasper Place Mohawks, went to the Moose Jaw Canucks junior team, then moved to the Ontario Hockey League's St. Catharines Black Hawks, where he had Marcel Dionne on his team.
He had a two-year run with the Oilers starting in 1973, before Bill Hunter fired him late in Season 2. Hunter fired his junior coach, Hodge, as well.
Shaw and Hodge wound up buying the Oil Kings from Hunter and relocating to Portland.
Shaw, who famously banned slapshots in practice for a time because Oilers goalie Jack Norris kept taking shots off his noggin, died of cancer in July 1993 at age 62, 20 years after his first coaching gig with the Oilers.
The legendary Clare Drake took a sabbatical from the University of Alberta to coach the Oilers in 1975, but it was a bittersweet year because he lasted only 48 games before Bill Hunter fired him.
Drake was up for election to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2011 as one of the game's all-time builders but, unfortunately, fell short in the vote count. He is the winningest coach (697 wins) in Canadian university history, starting with the Golden Bears in 1956. He was also an acknowledged mentor to NHL coaches Ken Hitchcock and Mike Babcock, who tried to get him into the HHOF.
Drake, who is now in his 80s, was on the coaching staff with Tom Watt and Lorne Davis on Canada's 1980 Olympic team, an assistant coach with the Winnipeg Jets and a special assignments guy with the San Jose Sharks. He's also in the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame.
Hunter pushed a lot of the right buttons psychologically as a coach, but Drake has forgotten more than Hunter ever knew about the technical aspects of coaching.
What was Bep Guidolin's legacy as Oilers coach for all but 18 games in 1976-77? He always wore multi-coloured sweaters and decided captain Glen Sather should coach the team when it was 18 games under .500 with the season wearing down. Guidolin had let Sather run practices while he attended to his general manager duties anyway.
Guidolin coached the Boston Bruins and Kansas City Scouts in the NHL, but it always seemed like he was putting in time with the Oilers after new owner Nelson Skalbania gave him the dual general manager/coach portfolio. He ordered Sather to coach the last month and the Oilers went 9-7-2.
"He told me I had to coach or I'd be sitting in the seats," Sather said.
Sather stayed as a player/coach, but gave up playing the next season.
Guidolin, who died at age 82, left the Oilers and coached the Philadelphia Firebirds in the American Hockey League for a season, replaced Pat Kelly as the NHL's Colorado Rockies coach during the '78-79 season (Don Cherry came in the next season), and finished coaching junior with the Brantford Alexanders in the Ontario Hockey League.
Got five Stanley Cup rings as an assistant coach with the Oilers, then took over as head coach in 1991 when John Muckler left for a general manager's job with the Buffalo Sabres and Mark Messier hiked off to the New York Rangers.
The Oilers made the NHL's final four in Green's first year as coach, but fell on hard times after that. He coached in '92-93, when the Oilers missed the playoffs, and then with his health failing, he was relieved of his duties early in the '93-94 season.
Green, who is now 78 and living in Edmonton, survived an awful stick swinging incident with Wayne Maki that almost killed him in the late 1960s. He had a rough exterior, but was a split-personality.
He was polite to a fault with one and all media members, and as hard on himself as the players as a coach. He took every loss to heart, and there were many after the '91-92 season, when the Oilers had very little talent. The team was stripped bare after about 12 years of success.
Green's two most vivid stories were relearning how to write with his left hand after Maki clubbed him senseless, and standing in a stairwell of the team bus day after day in the early 1990s, fighting off kidney stones. He was ashen-faced, but refused to give in to the pain and go to hospital.
Green has done extensive charity work with The Mustard Seed.
Coached the second-fewest games with the Oilers, only 35 in '94-95, the lockout season.
He was coaching Edmonton's farm team on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia for two years and got the nod over Oilers assistant coach Ron Low, in part because owner Peter Pocklington thought Burnett was outwardly more polished. Burnett also won over former U.S. president Gerald Ford, who was on one of Pocklington's boards, at a team winter golf tournament in California. "He's a leader amongst men," said Ford.
Unfortunately, he wasn't good enough.
Burnett rankled some of the veterans with his rules (ie., they had to wear ties everywhere). If he'd won more, it wouldn't have mattered, but Burnett, who had to wait until Jan. 20, 1995, to coach his first game because of the lockout, didn't get enough wins. He was 12-13-3 after 27 games, but lost seven in a row. He was fired when the team was in Anaheim and was replaced by Low.
Burnett, 50, did get back to the NHL as Craig Hartsburg's assistant with the Anaheim Ducks in the late '90s, but he's now coach and GM of the junior Belleville Bulls. He's had a very successful coaching career in Niagara Falls, Guelph and Oshawa in the Ontario Hockey League and working with Hockey Canada junior programs.
People forget Kevin Lowe was the Edmonton Oilers' head coach for a season before he became the general manager.
It happened right after he had to quit as a player after a virus caused an inner-ear problem and ongoing dizziness.
Lowe had returned to the Oilers from the New York Rangers in 1996 for a final hurrah as a defenceman. He played one full season, then seven games into a second season when the inner-ear problem KO'd him after he was hit in the head.
He was Ron Low's assistant for a year, and when Low left, Lowe took over in 1998-99 as the Oilers snuck into the playoffs as the 16th seed and, as usual, drew the Dallas Stars. They were bounced in four straight but lost all four games by a single goal.
Coached 656 games, second-only to Glen Sather's 842, and had 301 wins. Only 30 NHL coaches have won more than MacTavish, who paid his dues as an assistant, first with John Muckler in New York for two years, then as Kevin Lowe's right-hand man in 1999-2000. When Lowe took over from Sather as general manager, he passed the baton to his good friend MacTavish, who returned as Oilers' vice-president of hockey operations and is now the Oilers' general manager.
Everything with the Oilers' coaching over the years has seemed a natural progression, from Sather to Muckler to Ted Green, Ron Low to Lowe to MacTavish, with the exception of George Burnett taking over from Green instead of Green's assistant Low in 1994.
MacTavish made the playoffs in his first season, losing in six games to Dallas, with the Stars winning three of four games in overtime. The Oilers lost again to Dallas in six games in the first round in 2003, but went all the way to the Stanley Cup final in 2006.
In the first round, he shocked people by employing a neutral zone trap against the Detroit Red Wings, stifling them with a passive approach, coupled with several hundred blocked shots. They stunned the Wings in six games, rallied from two games down in Round 2 to beat the San Jose Sharks and then the Anaheim Ducks in five games, before losing to the Carolina Hurricanes in seven games.
His clubs missed the playoffs five times, however, including three straight before he left in April 2009.
It was later revealed that MacTavish had non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, which is in a dormant state.
When the Oilers came calling for Pat Quinn in the summer of 2009, he hadn't coached since the Toronto Maple Leafs let him go in 2006.
In the interim, he had a shot at the Boston Bruins' job, but didn't feel right about it, so he bided his time as a part-owner (with Ron Toigo) of the junior Vancouver Giants along with a stirring gold-medal win with Jordan Eberle and the rest of Canada's world junior team in 2009 at Ottawa.
When Craig MacTavish left as coach, Quinn got a three-year deal as the head man, with Tom Renney brought in as his associate coach. Quinn had first hired Oilers general manager Steve Tambellini in Vancouver after Tambellini's playing career ended. Tambellini was also part of the 2002 Olympic team management group with Quinn as head coach, so there was obviously a history there.
But Quinn was 66 at the time and the Oilers had a young group. It wasn't the fit people thought it could be.
Quinn was a quote-master, filling notebooks and TV sports shows.
"We have a lot of morning glories," he'd say, referring to players who do their best work at the morning skate but not in the games.
"Too many fly-by players," he'd say, when forwards like Robert Nilsson wouldn't stop and check somebody.
The team finished 30th, with only 27 wins, and got Taylor Hall in the NHL entry draft.
But Quinn only lasted one year as coach, with Tambellini saying he was restructuring the club. Quinn was to now be a special advisor. He claimed to be unaware when the club announced his new title, saying nobody had told him of plans for the restructuring.
Was hired in the summer of 2009. Pat Quinn only lasted one season, and Renney, who was his right-hand man, took over and stayed as head coach for two seasons.
Renney wasn't dealt a great hand, with Tambellini overhauling the club and starting anew. It made for a lot of teaching and a lot of hard lessons learned and a lot of losses as they finished 30th and 29th overall.
Renney tried to balance playing the older players to keep things respectable and going all-in with his kids. He protected Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Jordan Eberle and Taylor Hall rather than overplaying them, feeling that was the way to go.
In the end, Tambellini decided he wanted a new face. That's his prerogative, but he probably took too long to inform Renney he was out, rather than make the hard decision at the end of the 2011-12 season.
Renney knew the club was in a major transition and hoped he'd be the guy for the long haul. Before he wasn't rehired, he said, "Am I going to be the guy standing here when this team lifts the Stanley Cup? What are the odds? I sure hope so, but I have to do everything to leave my legacy behind."
In the end, Renney won't be part of the team picture should the Oilers win a Stanley Cup in the next few years. He's now Mike Babcock's associate coach with the Detroit Red Wings. The former Oilers/Vancouver Canucks/New York Rangers coach landed on his feet.
Funny how things work out. Tom Renney was looking for an associate coach in 2010 and called up Ralph Krueger when his first choice, Don Hay, the Vancouver Giants junior coach and former NHL head man, said no thanks. Krueger had just retired as head coach of Switzerland's national team, and Renney and Krueger were old friends from international competitions. Krueger, who grew up in Manitoba, jumped at the NHL chance and wound up getting Renney's job.
Krueger was looked upon as a longshot when the 2011-12 season ended with Brent Sutter and Marc Crawford's names front and centre, along with hotshot American Hockey League coach Jon Cooper, but general manager Steve Tambellini decided to stay in-house as he continued to rebuild the Oilers. Tambellini felt it better to have a familiar face for the young players than bring in an outsider, and Krueger, a great motivational speaker, was well-liked by the players.
Liked to hire and fire coaches and put himself behind the bench, like it was part of his DNA. He did it three times as the Oilers general manager, getting rid of Ray Kinasewich, Brian Shaw and, finally, the esteemable Clare Drake, all during the season. Shaw, at least, lasted almost two full seasons; the others just part of their first season.
"Bill was a promoter and a salesman and he always seemed to fire the coach halfway through the season. I don't know if it ever made a difference, but in Bill's mind it did," Oilers captain Al Hamilton told Ed Willes in his book, The Rebel League.
"He was an old-fashioned coach who believed in a very simple game and lots of emotion. I was in charge of enthusiasm," said goalie Ken Brown, who was tasked with the team cheer, 'We're the Oilers and we know it ... clap your hands.'"
Hunter had coached the senior Saskatoon Quakers and junior Medicine Hat Tigers, so he wasn't a neophyte behind the bench, but Hunter had no patience. He always felt he could do better, and he'd only have to answer to himself as the GM if things went sour. He was a better salesman than a coach. One day, after the team arrived just before game time due to bad weather, he came up with a novel idea for a pre-game meal.
"Go to the store and get some chocolate bars for the boys. And make them big bars," said Hunter.
Coached the Oilers for 842 NHL games, with a couple of interruptions when he stepped back in for Teddy Green in the mid-1990s and Bryan (Bugsy) Watson in the early '80s after being just the general manager. Sather started coaching in 1977 in the World Hockey Association as a player/coach. Coach/GM Bep Guidolin ordered Sather to coach or sit in the stands and Sather, never shy, took him up on the offer and had a better-than-.500 record down the stretch.
A coach was born. He later won four Stanley Cups with the Oilers. His strength as an NHL coach was as much psychological as technical. He knew which buttons to push. John Muckler was the Xs and Os guy. Sather could be sarcastic, but he was also a father-figure as a coach and knew who could be pushed and which players needed a shoulder to cry on. For instance, he had many run-ins with the wonderful offensive talent Paul Coffey about taking care of his own end, but they co-existed nicely until Coffey wanted more money than Sather, the GM, wanted to pay. Coffey was traded in 1987 to the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Sather was also smart enough to watch Anders Hedberg, Ulf Nilsson and Bobby Hull plus defenceman Lars-Erik Sjoberg with the WHA's Winnipeg Jets and realized that's the way he wanted his NHL team to play: Free-flowing, five-men into the attack.
"One of the reasons I got to coach the Oilers was because Glen respected the way the Jets played. We were ahead of the curve," former Winnipeg defenceman Ted Green said in The Rebel League by Eddie Willes.
"I took a lot of their transition skills," admitted Sather, who fortunately had Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Jari Kurri, Glenn Anderson and Coffey to make it work.
Coached the Oilers for 842 NHL games, with a couple of interruptions when he stepped back in for Teddy Green in the mid-1990s and Bryan (Bugsy) Watson in the early '80s after being just the general manager. Sather started coaching in 1977 in the World Hockey Association as a player/coach. Coach/GM Bep Guidolin ordered Sather to coach or sit in the stands and Sather, never shy, took him up on the offer and had a better-than-.500 record down the stretch.
A coach was born. He later won four Stanley Cups with the Oilers. His strength as an NHL coach was as much psychological as technical. He knew which buttons to push. John Muckler was the Xs and Os guy. Sather could be sarcastic, but he was also a father-figure as a coach and knew who could be pushed and which players needed a shoulder to cry on. For instance, he had many run-ins with the wonderful offensive talent Paul Coffey about taking care of his own end, but they co-existed nicely until Coffey wanted more money than Sather, the GM, wanted to pay. Coffey was traded in 1987 to the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Sather was also smart enough to watch Anders Hedberg, Ulf Nilsson and Bobby Hull plus defenceman Lars-Erik Sjoberg with the WHA's Winnipeg Jets and realized that's the way he wanted his NHL team to play: Free-flowing, five-men into the attack.
"One of the reasons I got to coach the Oilers was because Glen respected the way the Jets played. We were ahead of the curve," former Winnipeg defenceman Ted Green said in The Rebel League by Eddie Willes.
"I took a lot of their transition skills," admitted Sather, who fortunately had Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Jari Kurri, Glenn Anderson and Coffey to make it work.
Had the shortest stint of any Oilers coach: 18 games. He was hand-picked by Glen Sather, who had coached Edmonton's first NHL season in 1979-80, but after just four wins, Sather realized the mistake and went back behind the bench.
Watson played 16 NHL seasons because he was mean. He could check and fight and make life miserable for opposing skill players. He finished his pro career with the WHA's Cincinnati Stingers in '78-79 and caught on with the Oilers in management.
When Sather became general manager and president in 1980, he gave Watson the job, but his failing was wanting to play veteran players over youngsters like Jari Kurri. When he was let go, Watson stayed on as an assistant with Billy Harris.
The Oilers wouldn't have won their first four Stanley Cups without John Muckler, a master tactician. Through the regular season, Glen Sather's right-hand man would let his guys freewheel, but in the last month of regular season and into the playoffs, Sather leaned on Muckler to set out the game plans. The Oilers soaked it all in. Muckler's ideas of going after certain defencemen, like Ray Bourque and Mark Howe in the Boston Bruins and Philadelphia Flyers playoff series, respectively, always worked.
"Just dump it into their corner, make them go back for the puck, and pound them every shift until they get tired," Muckler would say.
When Wayne Gretzky was traded to the Los Angeles Kings in 1988, Sather decided to coach one more year, then handed over the reins to Muckler, who had been his co-coach.
Sather didn't feel it was right to run out after No. 99 was dealt; but he needn't have worried. Muckler, who first started coaching in the Eastern Hockey League in 1959, got the Oilers their last Stanley Cup win in 1990 as head coach.
Muckler, 78, was a phenomenal technical coach. He was set in his ways; he didn't like Petr Klima's penchant for playing only as hard as he wanted on some shifts. In the 1990 championship final against the Boston Bruins, he benched Klima for hours on the clock, over three full periods of the marathon overtime Game 1 in Boston. Then he sent out Klima, who scored the winner. "Just a hunch," Muckler said.
Muckler was later head coach with the Buffalo Sabres and New York Rangers.
Coached the Oilers for 842 NHL games, with a couple of interruptions when he stepped back in for Teddy Green in the mid-1990s and Bryan (Bugsy) Watson in the early '80s after being just the general manager. Sather started coaching in 1977 in the World Hockey Association as a player/coach. Coach/GM Bep Guidolin ordered Sather to coach or sit in the stands and Sather, never shy, took him up on the offer and had a better-than-.500 record down the stretch.
A coach was born. He later won four Stanley Cups with the Oilers. His strength as an NHL coach was as much psychological as technical. He knew which buttons to push. John Muckler was the Xs and Os guy. Sather could be sarcastic, but he was also a father-figure as a coach and knew who could be pushed and which players needed a shoulder to cry on. For instance, he had many run-ins with the wonderful offensive talent Paul Coffey about taking care of his own end, but they co-existed nicely until Coffey wanted more money than Sather, the GM, wanted to pay. Coffey was traded in 1987 to the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Sather was also smart enough to watch Anders Hedberg, Ulf Nilsson and Bobby Hull plus defenceman Lars-Erik Sjoberg with the WHA's Winnipeg Jets and realized that's the way he wanted his NHL team to play: Free-flowing, five-men into the attack.
"One of the reasons I got to coach the Oilers was because Glen respected the way the Jets played. We were ahead of the curve," former Winnipeg defenceman Ted Green said in The Rebel League by Eddie Willes.
"I took a lot of their transition skills," admitted Sather, who fortunately had Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Jari Kurri, Glenn Anderson and Coffey to make it work.
Was the Oilers' head coach for 341 games in the 1990s. Only Glen Sather and Craig MacTavish had longer stints behind the bench, with Low replacing George Burnett for the last 13 games of the 1994-95 lockout season, then staying on for the next four seasons. He had two unforgettable moments: The stunning first-round playoff upsets of the Dallas Stars in 1997 and the Colorado Avalanche and goaltender Patrick Roy in 1998.
Low started with the Oilers in 1980, coming over from the Quebec Nordiques in a late-season trade to get Edmonton into the playoffs with some splendid netminding. He was later traded to New Jersey and was in goal the night the Oilers lit up the Devils 13-4 and Wayne Gretzky called them a Mickey Mouse organization for hanging his buddy Low out to dry.
Low won two Stanley Cup rings as an Oilers assistant coach, first with Sather in 1987 and then with John Muckler in 1990. He coached their Cape Breton farm team before he got his first NHL head coaching gig.
Nobody worked harder on the ice and off. Sweat was always pouring off him, and he was a strong motivator behind the bench. He almost got into a fight with Marc Crawford one playoff night when he thought the Avalanche coach was trying to take advantage physically on the game's last shift by putting out slugger Warren Rychel with the Oilers having the win in the bag.
When the Oilers knocked off the Stars in Game 7 in '97 on Todd Marchant's goal on Andy Moog in overtime, Low almost broke a leg running onto the ice. Showing his goalie colours, he put Curtis Joseph in a bear hug before he congratulated Marchant because Cujo had stoned Joe Nieuwendyk seconds before the Oilers winger scored the game-winner. The next year, Low was on Cloud 9 when his club knocked off the juggernaut Avalanche, ending the series in Denver.
The WHA Oilers spent their first two seasons at the Gardens.
"Must have been the smallest building any major league sport played in," said former owner/general manager/coach Bill Hunter.
It was the ultimate barn, built just before the First World War started. In its original incarnation, there were wooden seats and steel girders everywhere blocking sightlines.
In 1966, the City of Edmonton spent almost $700,000 to renovate the building for the Oil Kings junior hockey team, with a seating capacity of 5,200. By then, there were concrete stands, and while it was functional for the early WHA years, it was an eyesore.
The building was eventually knocked down in 1982. The current Edmonton Expo Centre on the Northlands grounds is where the Gardens used to stand.
Pat Bowlen, who has been the owner of the NFL's Denver Broncos for years, and his partner Peter Batoni finished building the new arena in 1974 for $14 million. That was two years after they put the first shovel in.
It was originally named Northlands because the venerable organization ran the arena on their grounds. It was open for business on Nov. 10, 1974, with seating for 15,200.
Next to the rundown Edmonton Gardens, it was the ultimate palace, certainly one of the nicer WHA buildings until the league folded in 1979. It was home to Wayne Gretzky and the glory days of the NHL Oilers, and there were four Stanley Cup celebrations in the building in 1984, '85, '87 and '88. The Cup delirium on the ice made way for a mosh-pit picture where all the players, coaches and training staff members crowd in. Now every NHL club does it for posterity sake.
Northlands Coliseum became Edmonton Coliseum in 1994. It remained Edmonton Coliseum until 1998 when Skyreach bought the naming rights.
Local businessman Barry Weaver, one of the Oilers' minority owners in the Edmonton Investors Group, had a company called Skyreach Equipment (power lifts) that he founded in 1977. When the St. Albert native got involved with EIG, he bought the naming rights to the hockey rink for $5 or $6 million (stories differ) over five years. For the outgoing Weaver, having the building called Skyreach Centre cost him plenty, but it was a good return considering the company name was mentioned whenever an Oilers game was on TV and there was the giant logo on the arena that everybody saw. It was great advertising. The company was later sold to United Rentals. Weaver, a character who loved to have fun, died of a heart attack two years ago at age 65.
When Daryl Katz bought the Oilers from the Edmonton Investors Group, the name of the rink naturally became something to do with his chain of stores. While Rexall Place is the name, there's an inclination to simply call it The Drugstore in hockey stories.
There's lots of NHL buildings named for auto companies or banks, insurance companies or airlines, soft drinks, telecommunications, phone companies or energy companies, but Rexall Place is the only one that has to do with pharmacists and cosmeticians.
There's the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., the HSBC Arena in Buffalo, N.Y.; PNC Arena in Carolina, Air Canada Centre in Toronto, American Airlines Center in Dallas, United Center in Chicago, the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn., the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh, the Pepsi Center in Colorado, and the Bell Centre in Montreal.
There are lots of Centers or Centres of activity, but only one Place. One Rexall Place.
His No. 3 jersey is retired and hanging from the rafters at Rexall Place, next to Gretzky, Messier and Co. It's a testament to his enduring spot in Oilers' history as the team's first WHA captain.
The former Buffalo Sabres defenceman was in four World Hockey Association all-star games and a first-team, end-of-season all-star in 1977-78 and a second-teamer in '73-74. Unfortunately, Hamilton took a puck in the eye in the last WHA season and could play only 31 games in the Oilers' first NHL campaign before retiring.
Hamilton, who is now an executive with The Driving Force, also played for Bill Hunter's junior Edmonton Oil Kings. His son, Steve, is an assistant to current Oil Kings head coach Derek Laxdal.
"I never regretted leaving the NHL. We had an adventure that would be envied by anyone," said Hamilton, who signed a five-year deal starting at $80,000 and going up to $100,000 at the end of the contract.
When Sather left the Minnesota North Stars and signed with the Oilers in 1976, Bep Guidolin made him the captain instead of Al Hamilton. Sather had played 658 NHL games over 10 seasons in a vagabond career that took him from the Boston Bruins to the Pittsburgh Penguins to the New York Rangers to the St. Louis Blues to the powerhouse Montreal Canadiens in the early 1970s and Minnesota.
The former Oil Kings forward was a dogged role player, scoring only 80 career goals and one hat trick. "A write-in the next day on the scoresheet," Sather always joked of the scoring change.
He was captain for only one WHA season.
The defenceman had the same kind of haircut as Larry in the Three Stooges, and he was as funny as Larry, Moe and Curly Joe. He never had a bad day as a player.
Shmyr got the "C" with the Oilers when Glen Sather became coach in 1977. He captained them for two WHA seasons, then went back to the NHL to play for the Minnesota North Stars and Hartford Whalers. He was on the WHA's all-star team against the Soviet Union in 1974 and was one of only two WHA players (Bobby Hull was the other) invited to try out for the '76 Canada-USSR series.
It was only after he quit and was later diagnosed with throat cancer in 1999 that people saw a quieter side of the third Oilers captain. Always a fighter, he went through an aggressive treatment called stereotactic radiation and bought himself five years when he was originally given only three months to live. He died at age 58.
"Everything was a lot of fun when he was around, but he was also as tough as they came and absolutely maximized his abilities," said Al Hamilton, the first Oilers captain, in Ed Willes' book, Rebel League.
The silky-smooth centre wore No. 7 with the Oilers during the last two WHA seasons and most of Edmonton's first NHL campaign in 1979-80, when he was traded to the Quebec Nordiques for goalie Ron Low. Incidentally, the two had been teammates with the Dauphin Kings in the Manitoba Junior Hockey League once upon a time.
"Toughest trade we ever had to make. Chipper's mother was very sick," said then-head coach Glen Sather.
Chipperfield was a sensational junior in Brandon, scoring 90 goals one season and racking up 470 points in four years with the Wheat Kings. He was an early draft pick of the lamentable California Golden Seals, but opted to play in the WHA instead, first with the Vancouver Blazers, then the Calgary Cowboys and the Oilers.
He hiked to Italy to play in the mountain town of Bolzano for three seasons after being traded to the Nords, and wound up being an executive there and then became a player agent along with another former Oiler, Brett Callighen, getting North Americans to the European leagues.
Blair (or B.J., as in Blair Joseph) MacDonald's claim to fame was playing on Wayne Gretzky's line in the Oilers' first NHL season. He popped 46 goals and had 94 points to finish 10th in league scoring, tied with Hall of Famer-to-be Bernie Federko.
MacDonald was also fourth in voting for the Lady Byng Trophy with just three minor penalties all season.
His former coach, Glen Sather, later gave him a shot, saying "a fire-hydrant could score 40 with Gretzky," but MacDonald, now one of the chief bird dogs for the NHL's Central Scouting Bureau, had lots of offensive pop. He only lost his spot alongside No. 99 because the younger Jari Kurri came along, and Glenn Anderson was the other hotshot right-winger.
MacDonald, 59, was traded to the Vancouver Canucks in March 1981 for centre Ken Berry and defenceman Garry Lariviere (Lariviere was a player, Berry wasn't), but somehow was out of the NHL playing in Austria a couple of years later.
He later coached in Austria and was the International Hockey League coach of the year with the Muskegon Mohawks before turning to scouting.
Was the Oilers captain before Wayne Gretzky got the "C." The hard-as-nails, shot-blocking defencemen, who was one of the Oilers' picks in the expansion draft in 1979, stepped aside for No. 99. He became captain when Blair MacDonald was traded in March '81 and kept it until 1983.
Nobody was tougher than Fogolin, who once pried the cap off an infected tooth using a sharp curtain hook in a hotel room on the road.
Fogolin, who wore No. 2, came to Edmonton from the Buffalo Sabres and played 586 league games and another 78 in the playoffs with the Oilers. He was a menace to play against. He liked to say there was an inviting spot where the cuff of the glove and the arm meet, and he would often take the lumber to that unguarded area if anybody was going past him.
"You hit them there and their arm is going to go dead," said Fogolin, who left the Oilers in '87 because Steve Smith and Jeff Beukeboom had arrived on the scene.
He was traded to Buffalo for Norm Lacombe and retired shortly after that. Fogolin was a master carpenter when he played for the Oilers and later got into the construction business. He once built a dining room table out of six or seven different kinds of wood.
Was the Oilers captain for five years, until he was traded to the Los Angeles Kings on Aug. 9, 1988. He led by example, as Sidney Crosby does now with the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Gretzky wouldn't raise his voice much in the dressing room; that was his successor Mark Messier's role. But Gretzky was clearly the leader of the merry band of Oilers through their glory days. He captained them to four Stanley Cups, which meant he got the trophy first before the conga line for happy teammates got their turn hoisting the mug.
The most endearing captain's memory of Gretzky was holding the Cup aloft when the Oilers won their first NHL championship on May 19, 1984. Gretzky was 23 years old and had the wide-eyed look of a kid on Christmas morning as Paul Coffey and Dave Lumley helped him lift the trophy. Lumley had salted the game away with an empty-net goal after two quick scores by Pat LaFontaine turned a 4-0 rout in Game 5 into a nail-biter.
Gretzky and defenceman Jason Smith (2001-07, excluding the 2004-05 NHL lockout) are tied for the longest tenure as Oilers' captain.
Took the "C" after Wayne Gretzky left for Los Angeles, but he acted like the Oilers captain even when he didn't have that letter on his chest. Messier was the quintessential leader, even when he only wore an "A" as alternate captain. He was strong-willed, pulling people along with him.
He captained the Oilers to their last Stanley Cup championship in 1990 and did it again with the Rangers in 1994, guaranteeing a win over the New Jersey Devils in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup semifinals, which New York trailed at the time. He's the only NHLer to captain two NHL championship teams.
Messier has been called the greatest leader of all-time, not just on a 200x85-foot sheet of ice. Who can argue? The boldest stroke of Messier's captaincy as an Oiler came in Game 4 of the 1990 semifinal at the old Chicago Stadium with Edmonton trailing 2-1 in the series to Mike Keenan's Blackhawks. Messier was at his nasty best, taking a run at Blackhawks' defenceman Doug Wilson early to set the tone, and winding up with three points in the Oilers' 4-2 win. After that, they won the series and their last Cup.
"He was like a lot of great generals in wartime history," said Oilers defenceman Kevin Lowe, who succeeded Messier as captain.
Became the captain after Mark Messier was traded to the New York Rangers in '91 for Bernie Nicholls, Louie DeBrusk (now the Oilers' TV colourman) and Steven Rice, who never played in the NHL.
Lowe had long been part of the team's inner circle of leaders, with an "A" on his jersey, so he was a natural choice as Oilers captain. He'd been the first English-speaking captain of the Quebec
Remparts in his junior days, so he was used to responsibility before the Oilers made him their first NHL draft pick in 1979. Lowe had the "C" for only one season, however.
When he became a restricted free-agent in '92, he was dealt to the New York Rangers for lanky Russian forward Roman Oksiuta. It wasn't a great return; Oksiuta played only 36 games with the Oilers.
Was the captain for two years, trying to lead a leaky ship through some very troubled waters. The Oilers had only 60 and 64 points during those seasons, with the '92-93 team losing eight of its first 10 games and 11 of its final 12. The next season, the Oilers dropped 13 of their first 16 games, with coach Ted Green, whose health was failing, leaving the bench after 24 games.
MacTavish was dealt in March '94 to the Rangers, making it three straight captains going to New York (Mark Messier, Kevin Lowe and MacTavish). Centre Todd Marchant was retrieved from New York and wound up playing 678 games with Edmonton.
He was on the ice in the last two seconds of the Rangers' first Stanley Cup championship since 1940, taking the faceoff to clinch the 3-2 win over the Vancouver Canucks in Game 7.
Was a skilled, hard-nosed guy, but had the shortest run as captain, just 34 games in George Burnett's tenure as coach during the '94-95 lockout. Burnett stripped Corson of the "C" one game before he was fired in the midst of a nine-game losing streak, apparently because Corson tried to get the official scorer to give him an extra assist on a goal and Jason Arnott was furious and got in Corson's face.
Corson came to the Oilers from the Montreal Canadiens in a 1992 trade for Vincent Damphousse and played three years in Edmonton. He left for St. Louis after the lockout season and was one of three captains (Brett Hull and Wayne Gretzky were the others) for the Blues in the '95-96 season.
The current assistant coach played 795 games with the Oilers, fifth-most in team history, and was captain for four years.
Only Wayne Gretzky and Jason Smith had the "C" longer than the role-playing winger, who had the captaincy until he was picked up by the Atlanta Thrashers in the 1999 expansion draft. He spent only one season in Atlanta, then was traded to the Los Angeles Kings along with Nelson Emerson for Donald Audette and Frank Kaberle.
Buchberger wore the "C" on his chest and his heart on his sleeve as Oilers captain, fighting battles, killing penalties, leading completely by example. Considering that he had been a ninth-round draft choice (188th overall) in 1985, he not only battled huge odds to make the NHL, but to get the captaincy was icing on the cake.
Spent 8-1/2 years in Edmonton, after being acquired from the New York Rangers in a trade for Esa Tikkanen in 1994.
He was the captain his last two seasons before he was moved to the St. Louis Blues because the Oilers couldn't afford him. He went to the Blues on Canada Day 2001 for Marty Reasoner and Jochen Hecht. Reasoner was a good Oiler; Hecht didn't last long.
Weight wound up his 19-year career as captain of the New York Islanders, where he's now an assistant coach and advisor to general manager Garth Snow.
Weight and Lee Fogolin are the only American-born Oilers captains.
Conceivably, as the Oilers' best player through his tenure in Edmonton, he easily could have had the "C" longer than anybody if the Oilers hadn't dealt him.
The defenceman had the "C" for five years until he was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers in 2007. He was the defensive version of Kelly Buchberger.
He played hurt, played tough, led by example.
It's hard to fathom how the Toronto Maple Leafs just gave him away on March 23, 1999, sending him to the Oilers for second- and fourth-round draft choices because then-Toronto assistant coach and former blue-liner Ricky Ley didn't think Smith closed well enough on the puck-carrier.
Smith was captain when the Oilers got to Game 7 of the 2006 Stanley Cup final with the Carolina Hurricanes, but with the arrival of the younger Matt Greene, Smith was deemed expendable in 2007 and sent to the Flyers in a package with Joffrey Lupul for defenceman Joni Pitkanen and Geoff Sanderson. Smith was immediately named captain in Philly, too, a testament to his dogged style.
His signature defensive move was a straight-arm shiver to the chest of an attacking winger; he knocked scores of players butt-over-tea kettle.
Was chosen over defenceman Steve Staios for the captaincy when Jason Smith was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers. The day after he got the "C" in 2007, he broke his ankle blocking an Adrian Aucoin shot in an exhibition game. When he came back, he immediately broke his leg, so that season was a write off.
Late in the 2008-09 season, he took a stick in the eye from Minnesota Wild winger Antti Miettinen and scratched the cornea. When he came back, he wore a visor, although there was some feeling his eyesight was compromised after the fluke incident.
Late in the '09-10 season, the Oilers tried to trade him to a contender, but couldn't swing a deal. After that season, they planned on buying him out with one year left on his four-year contract, but
he was picked up on waivers by Columbus Blue Jackets general manager Scott Howson, a former Oilers assistant GM.
He retired after last season with concussion problems after the Los Angeles Kings sent him to their American Hockey League affiliate, the Manchester Monarchs. He's now a pro scout for the Montreal Canadiens.
Moreau was in the mould of Kelly Buchberger, only he had a better touch around the net. He wasn't as good a fighter, but he could change the temperature of a game with his bolt-up-the-ice style. The run of injuries and diminishing production made the last year of his tenure as captain troublesome.
The 13th Oilers captain is also the longest-serving member of the team. He started in 2000 after half-a-season with the Hamilton Bulldogs, at the time Edmonton's American Hockey League farm club.
Horcoff, who was a Hobey Baker finalist as the best college player in the United States while at Michigan State University, has been with the Oilers for 12 years. His first game was Dec. 4, 2000. He's played 765 games, sixth-most all-time.
This was the first year of the World Hockey Association and the Alberta Oilers were playing in the antiquated Edmonton Gardens with a seating capacity of 5,200.
The Oilers did much better in their first season in the National Hockey League.
The Oilers added another section of seats in Year 2 of the NHL.
The low point for the franchise at the end of a four-year run when the Oilers failed to make the playoffs. On many nights, there were only 8,000 to 9,000 fans in the building and you could hear in the press box as head coach Ron Low screamed instructions to his players from the bench.
The Oilers faced the Canadiens in an outdoor game at Commonwealth Stadium. The extra attendance drove the average attendance to 105 per cent.
Hover the cursor over each orange bar to find out about who owned the Oilers during that time period. Initials appear where full names will not fit, but the full name will appear upon hovering the cursor.
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Hover the cursor over each orange bar to find out the Oilers record and winning percentage for that season.
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Hover the cursor over each group of boxes in one season to find out about how the Oilers finished in their division. The blue boxes represent other teams in the Oiler's division. The orange boxes represent the Oilers' position in the division. First place is at the top of the cluster, last place at the bottom. The name of the division is listed under the seasons. For the WHA years the division changed annually, so no divisional names are included.
Hover the cursor over each group of boxes in one season to find out about how well the Oilers did in the playoffs that season. The total number of boxes represent playoff rounds. Blue boxes represent rounds the Oilers did not participate in and orange boxes represent Oilers involvement in those rounds. The Stanley Cups over the clusters represent the Oilers five championships.
Hover the cursor over each group of boxes in one season to find out about how well the Oilers did against the hated Calgary Flames in that season. The orange portion of the bar represents wins, the blue part loses and the white part ties.