Here's one Edmonton

May 25, 2024

Every so often in hockey comes an extraordinary event or accomplishment that warrants, and then rewards, a deeper dive. Has this happened before? How often? Where does this one rank in the annals of the game? What does it have in common with similar accomplishments of the past, and why does it stand out within the circumstances of the present day?

Two such exceptional feats occurred in 2022-23, with the Edmonton Oilers playing a prominent role in both narratives.

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It’s into that latter feat that we’ve taken the plunge in recent days. First we compared the rosters of the victorious Golden Knights to the vanquished Oilers, only to find that we were comparing apples with pineapples. VGK were largely built and remain heavily influenced by acquisitions surrounding their entry to the league, be it in the expansion draft itself or related trades. By carefully managing their cap space through that process, they were able to become a major player in both the free agent and the trade market. Just one current Vegas player was acquired through the draft, rendering a long-time hockey tenet, “build through the draft”, into a moot point. In the unique case of the Golden Knights, maybe it reads “build through the expansion draft”.

Our second post delved into the history of all expansion teams since 1967, which underscored the rarity of the Golden Knights’ feat. Only the Oilers had won their first Cup faster, while the Vegans were a year faster than Philadelphia Flyers and two years clear of New York Islanders. All four must surely be listed on the short list of best new teams added since the Original Six, with the Pittsburgh Penguins likely filling out the top five by virtue of their five Cups, although a bit slower off the mark (24 years to #1). You can pick your order, but would be hard-pressed to make the case for an outsider to topple any of them from the top five. (With Vegas an emphatic fifth in my book, as all of the Oilers, Flyers and Islanders successfully defender their first, early Cup. Obviously, Vegas has a chance to do the same, let’s talk again if and when they’ve done so.

We’ll wrap up our expansion triptych with another comparison between the Golden Knights and the Oilers, but with a twist. Instead of comparing the current champs to the modern contenders, we’ll go back across the decades to compare them to the only previous NHL team to win the Stanley Cup in their sixth season in existence. Namely the 1984-85 Edmonton Oilers, a.k.a. the Team of the Century.

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Like the Golden Knights, those Oilers had their roots in an “expansion” process that still bore fruit six years later. So at least there’s a comparison to be made, even as we’ll find the two clubs took a very different path to their later success.

The Vegas side of these tables will be unchanged from that presented in our prior comp to the modern Oilers. In this case, though, we see the early Oilers acquired a rock solid defenceman in the expansion draft proper and came up with three useful depth wingers through trades related to the process, all of them named Dave. Two of those Daves, Hunter and Semenko, had played with the WHA Oilers the previous season, but their rights were reclaimed by the NHL teams (Montreal and Minnesota) who had selected those players in the NHL Draft and “lost” them to the WHA. Both re-acquisitions cost Glen Sather a decent draft pick.

On balance Vegas derived more value from the (MUCH more generous) expansion process.

The Oilers, however, had a player under an entirely different category who, it turned out, nobody could match. That would be Wayne Gretzky, listed here as a “gift from the hockey gords”, although he could also be shown as Edmonton’s (one!!) protected skater from the reverse expansion draft, and more a survivor of the expansion process than a product of it.

Signed by the Indianapolis Racers at 17, then traded/sold to the Oilers just before Nelson Skalbania’s club shut its doors, then locked up to a 21-year “personal services contract” on his 18th birthday by the cagey Peter Pocklington, Gretzky entered the expansion process as an untouchable. Since by the rules of the day he wasn’t even eligible for the NHL Draft until 1981, no current team other than the Oilers could lay claim to his rights. Pocklington insisted throughout the tense merger/expansion negotiations that Gretzky’s rights were a “dealbuster”, and eventually got his way. The Great One was never drafted in either pro circuit. But he was an Edmonton Oiler.

This was recognized as a strength of the Golden Knights in our prior post, and that praise holds true here. Some pretty big contributors here, not least being Vegas captain Mark Stone. He was acquired in the club’s second year for assets acquired at the initial expansion, then given a handsome long-term extension with the copious cap space Vegas still had at their disposal at that point. Stone has proved useful to Vegas both on the ice and on LTIR (where his absence paved the way for Ivan Barbashev’s addition at the deadline). Miraculously healthy come playoff time, he was front and centre with 11 goals and 24 points, and dominated the Finals with 5-4-9 in five games including a hat trick in the clincher, then receiving the Stanley Cup on behalf of his team.

Then there’s Jack Eichel, acquired in a massive trade the season before last while awaiting (dare I call it) cutting-edge surgery on his neck. VGK took a mammoth risk there, paid a heavy price too, but in 2023 enjoyed the benefits of a healthy Eichel playing the best hockey of his career. His 26 points led all playoff scorers.

Vegas also added some very useful guys for cheap: Chandler Stephenson for a fifth round pick, Brett Howden for a fourth, Adin Hill for a fourth. Absolute steals. Fair to say they’ve done well in the trade market, be they headline-grabbing deals or lower-profile ones that prove their worth subtly, over time.

The Golden Knights also showed little compunction about moving out players who had outlived their cap hit, if not their usefulness. The divestitures of Marc-Andre Fluery and Max Pacioretty were especially cold-blooded, but were deemed necessary to clear cap space used in other ways.

On the Edmonton side of this equation — where salary cap was not a consideration — the list of trade acquisitions is less splashy but impressive. Glen Sather acquired a number of VERY useful role players who found ways to contribute, even as none of these dudes is first to mind when one envisions the ’85 Oilers. Which of course means Gretzky first and foremost, followed by a whole bunch of guys in the next two tables:

A void for Vegas in this ultra-important category, making them the first champion team in modern memory not to have even one home-grown first-rounder on their team.

A newish team themselves, the Oilers nonetheless acquired three cornerstones with their top picks of 1979, ’80, and ’81. Today all three are members of the Hockey Hall of Fame.

One solid second-round pick here from Vegas’ first ever expansion draft; since then, nuttin’. We’ll remind from our prior post that Vegas sent many of their drafted assets away in the deals that landed Stone, Eichel and others. It’s a very different approach from the old tradition of incoming teams building through the draft.

Which is certainly what we see on the Oilers’ side of the table, with three more Hall of Famers clustered at the top and some very useful contributors listed underneath. It was Edmonton’s astute drafting in their early NHL years, on the heels of the miracle that landed a hockey savant in our city, that set that squad apart.

Some pretty nifty work done here by the management and scouts of both clubs. Zach Whitecloud and Logan Thompson were beauty signings by the Golden Knights, but they’ve got work to do if they want to match the long-term impact of Charlie Huddy and Randy Gregg, each a reliable blueliner who won five Stanleys in Edmonton.

Another fundamental difference between the two sides and more to the point, between the two eras. The UFA market plays an essential role in the modern NHL. The Golden Knights acquired one core player by this route in Alex Pietrangelo. The other two are better considered support players, though Laurent Brossoit was credited with 6 playoff wins before being felled by injury. Suffice to say the Golden Knights didn’t go crazy here, but got one player critical to their success.

For their part, other than signing Huddy and Gregg at the entry level, the Oilers had zero players acquired by the free agency route. Their first NHL free agent, Craig MacTavish, would arrive in Edmonton that fall of ’85.

Since undertaking this “how the champs were built” methodology in the last few years, I always secretly wanted to do the same with the dynasty Oilers, and the success of the expansionist Golden Knights provided the perfect excuse to dig in. As expected, this comp showed some similarities: each team made key moves at and around the expansion draft(s) to secure some nuts-and-bolts players right from the start. Each team was aggressive in combing the entry level market; indeed, each found a fine player in the still-rarely-accessed Canadian university pipeline. Both were aggressive on the trade market, though the Oilers were shopping primarily for support players, whereas VGK seemed to be in the mix every time a star player went to market and acquired some of their most important players this way.

Where the Oilers kicked butt on the Golden Knights or indeed any modern team was a) the hockey phenom that was Wayne Gretzky and b) their extraordinary success at the amateur draft where they drafted six Hall of Famers in their first three years in the NHL. By Year Five they were in the ascendant and won their first Stanley (as prophesied by Pocklington in 1979), then the following year repeated the feat with a club so dominant it was named the NHL’s Team of the Century. That’s something of a nebulous discussion of course, but those ’80s Oilers certainly belonged in the conversation, and as the old saying goes, if you’re in it you might as well win it.

For those Golden Knights fans who think your team is better, let’s revisit this at the end of the NHL’s second century, in 2117. If the 2023 VGK are similarly recognized, then I’m prepared to relent and recognize this comparison as an old-fashioned tie. But today and going forward, I’ll stick with the Oilers as the most successful newbie of modern times.

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