Throwback Thursday: History of the Oilers’ Halloween Games

For the second time in two weeks, the Edmonton Oilers will take on the Nashville Predators on Thursday.

In that episode of Throwback Thursday, we looked at the game in which Leon Draisaitl torched the Predators with four goals on March 2, 2020. again In two Thursdays, we’ll look at the Oilers’ Halloween record instead.

The Oilers are in their 46th season since joining the National Hockey League. Oddly enough, they only played 11 games on Halloween against nine different opponents, most recently in the 2015-16 season. In those 11 games, they went 5-4-2, outscoring opponents 40-30. One game, the first one we’ll look at, is a big reason for this.

1981-82

Edmonton’s first Halloween game came in Season 3 when they faced the Quebec Nordiques at the Northlands Coliseum and the Oilers routed them 11-4 to push their season record to 9-4.

Wayne Gretzky accounted for four of those goals, scoring his 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th goals in what became the highest-scoring season ever as The Great One finished with 92 goals. Also on the scoresheet for the Oilers were Matti Hagman (twice), Brett Calligen, Glenn Anderson and Jari Kurri (also twice).

It wasn’t Edmonton’s biggest lead or the most goals they scored in a game (they won another game less than two months later, 11–4), but it was the most goals they scored in a game at that moment.

1982-83

The following season, the Oilers suffered their first loss on Halloween, losing 3–2 to the Vancouver Canucks. Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier scored goals in this game. Richard Brodeur (no relation to Martin) got the win, but a fun fact about him is that he is the goalie Wayne Gretzky has scored against the most, with 29 goals.

Edmonton made its first Stanley Cup final in 1983, but that loss dropped its season record to 4-6-3. The Oilers have failed in the Stanley Cup Final three times, starting their first 13 games with a 4-6-3 record, 6-6-1 in 2006 and 2-9-1 last season. .

1986-87

Four years later, the Oilers got their revenge on the Canucks, defeating them 6–2 and running their season record to 6–2. At two different points in this game the Oilers were down by a goal, but by the third period with the score 2–2, the Oilers had the upper hand with Gretzky scoring two goals and Paul Coffey and Mark Messier each scoring once. It was Messier’s second goal of the game, with Mike Krushelniski scoring the second of the second period.

One of Vancouver’s goals was scored by Steve Tambellini, yes, the future general manager of the Oilers. During his 10-year career, he scored 160 goals and 310 points in 553 games, with the 1986–87 season being his penultimate season.

Vancouver was one of two teams the Oilers played twice on Halloween, the other team playing their first meeting with the Oilers the following season.

1987-88

The following season, the Oilers faced the New Jersey Devils, losing 6–5 and bringing their season record to 6–5–0. That’s okay, though, since the Oilers won the Stanley Cup in 1988. Pat Verbeek scored early in the third period to make the score 6–3 in favor of the Devils. Despite goals from Mark Messier and Glenn Anderson in the final five minutes of the game, the Oilers were unable to come back.

The two teams combined for 111 penalty minutes, which sounds like a huge number these days but doesn’t even rank among the top 86 games for the most penalty minutes in league history. Hell, hockey in the 1980s was a completely different beast and I wish I could experience it for myself.

1990-91

From a high-scoring game to a game that ended 1-0 in overtime, the Oilers fell to the original Winnipeg Jets 1-0 thanks to Pat Elinewick’s overtime winner 23 seconds into the extra frame. After unexpectedly winning the Stanley Cup just a few months earlier, the Oilers fell to 2-7-2 with this loss.

The game marked their fifth straight loss, but they didn’t stop there: they lost four more games to bring their season record to 2-11-2. Over their next 37 games, they went 25-10-2 and pushed their record to 27-22-3. They made it through the postseason and even made it to the conference finals, where they lost to the Minnesota North Stars in five games.

1992-93

Two seasons later, the Oilers faced the Capitals, defeating them 4–2 to bring their season record to 3–8–1. Craig Simpson, Brian Glynn, Esa Tikkanen and Josef Beranek, who were part of Wayne Gretzky’s trade tree.

Bill Ranford had an assist in the game, the 13th assist of his career. Overall, the goalie’s 24 assists rank him 16th in scoring at the position. The 1992–93 season also marked the first season that the Oilers missed the playoffs since joining the National Hockey League.

1995-96

By the time Halloween rolled around in 1995, the dynasty was long gone and a new core had arrived, including the likes of Doug Waite, Jason Arnott, Todd Marchant and Miroslav Satan. In this game, the Oilers defeated the New Jersey Devils by a score of 2–1. bring his season record to 4-5-1.

It was also the second and final time the Oilers played an opponent they had played the previous Halloween. As in the 1982 game against the Canucks, the opposing team had a goalie named Brodeur, with the Hall of Fame goalie stopping 24 of 26 shots in that game.

1998-99

Three years later, the Oilers hosted the Pittsburgh Penguins without Mario Lemieux, defeating them 4–1 and running their season record to 5–4–0.

Kevin Brown opened the scoring on the power play at 9:12. Brown was born in Birmingham, England, and is one of 50 players born in the United Kingdom to play in the National Hockey League. He played 64 games in total, finishing in 26th place. He is also one of 10 British-born players to play in the NHL since the turn of the millennium.

Exactly one minute later, Boyd Devereaux scored the winning goal short-handed. Andrei Kovalenko scored his second goal of the season late in the second period, followed by a Penguins goal from Rob Brown (no relation, he’s from Kingston, Ont.). Mike Grier scored late in the third period to give the Oilers a 4–1 victory.

1999-00

The game against the St. Louis Blues was the last at the turn of the millennium, with the Oilers losing to the Blues 3–2 after taking a 2–0 lead. After the overtime loss, the Oilers switched to a 2-2-2-2 formation for the season. Doug Waite and Janne Niimimaa scored goals for the Oilers in this game.

Oddly enough, a whole group of players in this game found work in hockey after finishing their playing careers. On the Oilers’ side, Dan Cleary is Detroit’s director of player development, Mike Grier is the general manager of the San Jose Sharks, Jason Smith is currently an assistant coach for the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, and Doug Waite was a former head coach. Oilers.” New York Islanders for two seasons.

As for the Blues, Marc Bergevin was the general manager of the Montreal Canadiens and is now a senior advisor to the general manager of the Los Angeles Kings, Craig Conroy was the general manager of the Calgary Flames, and Chris Pronger was an NHL player. Safety.

2009-10

The first Halloween game of the 21st century took place in 2009, when the Oilers lost 2-0 to the Boston Bruins to improve their season record to 7-6-1. It was the second time they were eliminated on Halloween, having lost 1-0 to the Jets in 1990.

Both goals came before the midway point of the third period, with Blake Wheeler scoring his fourth goal of the season and Vladimir Sobotka scoring his first goal of the season just over four minutes later. Daniel Pyle provided assists on both goals.

Before the 2009–10 season, the Oilers signed goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin (age 36 at the time) to replace Dwayne Roloson. The Russian goaltender had a strong season, posting a .909 save percentage in 18 games, but underwent season-ending back surgery in mid-January. His final season with the Oilers was in 2012-13 before he retired on November 13, 2015… for eight years before returning to the Kontinental Hockey League to play for Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod at the age of 50. Unfortunately, he never played in a single KHL game that season.