The Edmonton Oilers are a professional ice hockey team based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. They are members of the Northwest Division in the Western Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL).
The Oilers were founded on November 1, 1971, with the team playing its first season in 1972 as one of twelve founding franchises of the major professional World Hockey Association (WHA). Notably, the team was temporarily renamed the Alberta Oilers when the Calgary Broncos (a fellow WHA founding franchise in Alberta) relocated to Cleveland, Ohio. However, the team returned to the Edmonton Oilers name the following year. The Oilers subsequently joined the NHL in 1979 as one of four franchises introduced through the NHL merger with the WHA. The Oilers are now the sole remaining WHA team playing in their original city.
After joining the NHL, the Oilers quickly went on to win the Stanley Cup on five occasions: 1984, 1985, 1987, 1988 and 1990. As one of the dominant NHL teams of the 1980s, the Oilers team of this era has been honored with "dynasty" status by the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Franchise history
WHA years (1972–1979)
On November 1, 1971, the Edmonton Oilers became one of the 12 founding World Hockey Association franchises. The original team owner was Bill Hunter. Hunter had previously owned the junior hockey franchise Edmonton Oil Kings. He had also founded what would become the Western Hockey League. However, Hunter's efforts to bring major professional hockey to Edmonton via an expansion NHL franchise had been rebuffed by the NHL. Therefore, Hunter looked to the upstart WHA instead. It was Hunter who chose the "Oilers" name for the new WHA franchise. This was a name that had previously been used as a nickname for the Edmonton Oil Kings in the 1950s and 1960s.
After the newly founded Calgary Broncos were relocated to Cleveland prior to commencement of the inaugural WHA season, the Oilers were renamed the Alberta Oilers as it was planned to split their home games between Edmonton and Calgary. Therefore, the team began their inaugural year wearing the name of the province ("ALBERTA") along the backs of their jerseys where the players' names would usually appear. However, the team switched to presenting the players' names midway through the season. Possibly for financial reasons or to allow for a less complicated return of the WHA to Calgary, the team ultimately played all of its home games in the Edmonton Gardens and subsequently changed its name back to the Edmonton Oilers the following year.
The team proved popular with the fans, behind stars such as defenceman and team captain Al Hamilton, star goaltender Dave Dryden, and forwards Blair MacDonald and Bill Flett. The team's performance would change for the better in 1978, when new owner Peter Pocklington scored one of the greatest trades in hockey history, acquiring already-aspiring superstar Wayne Gretzky as an under-age player (consequentially, his first year of WHA experience did not make him an official 1979–80 NHL rookie), as well as goaltender Eddie Mio and forward Peter Driscoll, from the recently-folded Indianapolis Racers for a token sum. Gretzky's first and only WHA season, 1978–79, saw the Oilers shoot to the top of the WHA standings, posting a league-best 48–30–2 record. However, Edmonton's regular season success did not translate into a championship, as they fell to the rival Winnipeg Jets in the Avco World Trophy Final. Young Oilers enforcer Dave Semenko scored the last goal in WHA history late in the third period of the final game.
The Oilers joined the National Hockey League for 1979–80, along with fellow WHA teams Hartford Whalers, Quebec Nordiques, and the Jets following a merger agreement between the two leagues. Of these four teams, only Edmonton has avoided relocation and renaming; the Nordiques became the Colorado Avalanche in 1995, the Jets became the Phoenix Coyotes in 1996, and the Whalers became the Carolina Hurricanes in 1997.
Entry into the NHL (1979–1983)
The Oilers lost most of the players from 1978–79 when the NHL held a reclamation draft of players who had bolted to the upstart league. They were allowed to protect two goaltenders and two skill players, including Gretzky.
However, GM/coach Glen Sather carefully restocked the roster in the expansion draft. He later said that out of 761 players on the draft list, only 53 really interested him. He concentrated on drafting free agents, since the Oilers would get compensation if they signed somewhere else. He estimated that this saved the Oilers as much as $500,000 that could be used in the Entry Draft.
This strategy allowed the Oilers to put together a fairly respectable team quickly. In marked contrast, the Jets finished dead last in the league two years in a row. The Oilers benefited from an early run of success in the Entry Draft. Within three years, Sather and chief scout Barry Fraser bagged an outstanding core of young players, including Mark Messier, Glenn Anderson, Jari Kurri, Paul Coffey, Kevin Lowe, Grant Fuhr and Andy Moog.
With an abundance of speed and skill this impressive group of young talent matured into one of the greatest teams in hockey history, dominating the NHL in the mid-to-late 1980s. Many experts consider the Oilers from that decade not only to be the best team ever in the long history of the NHL, but also one of the best sports teams ever, as evidenced by a recent Sporting News poll in February 2006 when the 1987–88 Oilers were listed as one of the top-five teams from the last 120 years.
The Oilers made a name for themselves very early, making the Stanley Cup playoffs in their first NHL season (1979–80) with a dramatic late-season winning streak, but were swept by the Philadelphia Flyers in three games. Gretzky's rookie disappointment was not limited to the "merger" rule that disqualified him from Calder Memorial Trophy voting—the Los Angeles Kings' Marcel Dionne was awarded the Art Ross Trophy (point-scoring crown). Although both Gretzky and Dionne each scored 137 points, Dionne won the Art Ross on the basis scoring two more goals. In his 1985 biography of his son, Gretzky: From the Backyard Rink to the Stanley Cup , Walter Gretzky argued that the NHL was inconsistent and unfair with regards to Wayne's eligibility for the Calder Trophy and "loss" of the Art Ross Trophy. While the letter of the law was against him, Gretzky won over the voters with his remarkable performance, and was awarded the Hart Trophy as NHL MVP, an unprecedented feat for a teenager. It turned out to be the first of eight in a row.
In the 1980–81 regular season, Gretzky began to take serious aim at the record book, scoring 109 assists and 164 points to break records held by former Bruin greats Bobby Orr, Phil Esposito and Bill Cowley. The Oilers unveiled a spectacular crop of rookies: Kurri, Anderson, Coffey and Moog. The youthful Oilers, whose seven key players were 21 or younger, stunned the hockey world by sweeping the heavily-favoured Montreal Canadiens in three games and pushing the (successfully) defending Stanley Cup champion New York Islanders to six games.
In the 1981–82 season, the Oilers made a dramatic leap in the standings—jumping from 74 points (14th overall) in the previous season to 111 points (second overall, behind only the Islanders). Gretzky not only became the third NHL player to score 50 goals in 50 games, joining the Islanders' Mike Bossy from the previous season and Canadiens legend Maurice Richard from 1944–45, doing so in just 39 games. Gretzky finished the season with unprecedented totals of 92 goals and 212 points, records that have never been seriously threatened. The explosive Oilers became the first NHL team to score 400 goals, a feat they accomplished in five consecutive seasons. But youthful lapses of discipline led to a first round defeat at the hands of the Kings, even as Gretzky beat Dionne for the Art Ross—in the 1980–81 to 1986–87 seasons, Gretzky won the Art Ross trophy every season, beating the annual runner-up by a staggering average of 66 points. He won the Hart Trophy as the NHL's Most Valuable Player in each of his first eight seasons.
In 1982–83 the Oilers solidified their status as an elite team, making it all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals. However, they were swept in four games by the three-time defending champion Islanders, who had already-greats like Bossy, Bryan Trottier, Clark Gillies and Denis Potvin. Goaltender Billy Smith played a huge role in the Finals, holding the high-scoring Oilers to just 6 goals. Despite the sweep, many hockey pundits believed it was only a question of when, not if, the Oilers would finally break through.
Dynasty years (1983–1990)
In 1983–84, the Oilers roared through the regular season, earning a franchise-record 57 wins and 119 points—by far the best record in the league—while scoring a still-unmatched NHL record 446 goals. They earned a rematch with the Islanders in the Stanley Cup Finals. They won the opening game in Long Island by a score of 1–0, and were pounded 6–1 in the next game. However, the Oilers erupted on their home ice to outscore the Islanders 19–6 over the last three games of the series. Gretzky scored his 99th and 100th goals of the season in the finale, a 5–2 Oiler triumph on May 19, 1984. Mark Messier, a former All-Star left wing switched to center late in the season in an inspired move by Sather, emerged from Gretzky's shadow with a dominating Finals performance
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