Here’s to potential new era of Oilers playoff magic
If franchise history is any lesson, there will be plenty to learn along the way
He who ends up with the most memories wins.
That’s a philosophy on life. But it’s also one for hockey fans to think about as a new era of Stanley Cup playoffs in Edmonton is about to unfold.
For the first 26 years of their existence, the Edmonton Oilers led the NHL in making memories.
In that span, no team played more playoff games or created as much history for the record books. Before the arrival of the decade of darkness that followed, Edmonton fans had been spoiled. No fan base had experienced more excitement or witnessed more moments to treasure than Edmonton fans over that span.
Edmonton is back in the playoffs with a great young team led by Connor McDavid, much like the team was led by Wayne Gretzky at the beginning.
Will today’s young fans end up with a similar number of frozen-in-time memories their parents and grandparents experienced? It begins now.
In 1980, when the Oilers completed their first regular season in the NHL, it would begin in Philadelphia.
The Oilers finished 16th and had to play the No. 1 overall Flyers in a best-of-three first-round series.
I wonder how many fans will be in Rogers Place for the first home game of this playoff era that were there for the first one in the Northlands Coliseum when the Oilers lost 3-2 in double overtime to lose the series in a sweep?
“The only thing that beat them in this series was our experience,” said Bobby Clarke.
But the quote of the day came from former WHA Oilers goalie Jacques Plante, the Flyers goalie coach.
“All they need are a couple of key drafts and a trade or two and I’ll tell you what, they’re going to be there,” said the Montreal Canadiens legend. “In five years, they could be playing for the Stanley Cup in the final series. And when they get there with the talented youth they have, they’ll be around for a long, long time.”
Will there be quotes like that about the Oilers after the playoffs this year?
Back in the Stanley show in 1981, Edmonton’s first-round opponent was the Montreal Canadiens franchise with all those Stanley Cup banners hanging from the rafters of the Montreal Forum. The Oilers had exactly 162 games of playoff experience on its bench. The Canadiens had more than 1,000.
“Montreal has years of playoff experience and tradition. We have none. Just youth and desire,” said coach Glen Sather.
Goaltenders Ron Low and Eddie Mio were both injured, so Sather chose to go with a kid in goal by the name of Andy Moog, who had played junior with the Billings Bighorns 12 months earlier. It was his NHL playoff debut. Moog backstopped the Oilers to a 6-3 win in Game 1.
“What an honour,” said Paul Coffey. “To beat the Montreal Canadiens in the Forum in a Stanley Cup playoff game. I can’t think of a better word. What an honour.”
The Oilers returned to the Forum for Game 2 and won it 3-1.
“This is Fantasy Island,” said 19-year-old Coffey.
“They play with no nerves,” said Canadiens coach Claude Ruel.
The Canadiens, as the series reverted to Alberta for Game 3 and the second Stanley Cup playoff game ever in Edmonton, tried to convince the Oilers the pressure would be all on them.
“I don’t think so,” said Gretzky. “Edmonton has been waiting 80 years for this sort of thing. It’s going to be great.”
It was great. For the third straight game, Moog was great. The Oilers won 6-2 and the historians had to go back to 1952 and the Detroit Red Wings of Terry Sawchuk, Red Kelly, Ted Lindsay, Sid Abel and Gordie Howe to find a team that had last swept the Canadiens in a playoff series.
“We just beat the best team in hockey,” said Gretzky. “Who knows what we can do?”
Gretzky meant the greatest team in hockey history. The current champion New York Islanders took it the wrong way and used it as motivation against the kids from Edmonton in the next series.
The Islanders won the first two games of the series 8-2 and 6-3 in Uniondale, N.Y. But back to Edmonton for their third home game in Stanley Cup history and Gretzky scored three and the cardiac kids beat the Stanley Cup champions 5-2. But Ken Morrow scored at 5:41 of overtime to give the Islanders Game 4.
Back in New York, something remarkable happened.
The Oilers started singing their fans’ song on the bench. “Here we go Oilers. Here we go.” Matti Hagman scored the winner in a 4-3 thriller.
They sang it again in the shower after the game.
Back in Edmonton for Game 6, the champions heard no more from the Edmonton Boys Chorus as they ended the series with a 5-2 win.
“This proves that we’re going to be there,” Kevin Lowe said to the walls in the Oilers dressing room.
Not all memories in the dawning of a new era are going to be good ones. That undeniably was the case in Year 3 — the year of the Miracle on Manchester.
The Oilers ended up with 48 wins, 17 losses and 15 ties for 111 points from their 1981-82 campaign in the NHL. But with the first-round series against the Los Angeles Kings tied at 1-1, the Oilers found themselves gassing a 5-0 lead in the third period and losing 6-5 in overtime.
“Stupid hockey,” correctly analyzed Gretzky of the debacle.
The Oilers won Game 4 by a 3-2 count but went home and went down 7-4 in Game 5 of the now best-of-five first-round series and headed into the summer with their sensational season spoiled.
An Oilers doll hung from the ceiling in the Kings dressing room. It had been quickly constructed by the Kings using an oil can. Attached to it were wobbly legs and weak knees and a pea-sized head.
And so it was that I was inspired to write The Paragraph.
“From today until they’ve won a playoff series again, they are weak-kneed wimps who thought they were God’s gift to the National Hockey League, but found out they were nothing but adolescent, front-running, good-time Charlies who couldn’t handle adversity.”
From God’s gift to the NHL to weak-kneed wimps?
Assistant coach Billy Harris came clean about what had happened on the night of the Miracle on Manchester.
“Remember when I told you after Game 3 in Los Angeles that for the first time all season I had nothing to say? Now I’ll tell you why.
“Our cockiness and antagonistic attitude is the biggest reason we’re still not playing. We were leading 4-0 in that game when it happened. L.A. had a power play and our bench, our entire bench, was booing the Los Angeles power play.”
After a long summer being asked, “What the hell happened?” by everyone, everywhere they went, the regular season was mostly the long wait to get back to the playoffs to prove they were a team of some substance.
The Oilers dispatched Winnipeg in the first round and then advanced to the first Battle of Alberta playoff series. The ones that followed would be wonderful. Not this one. It went five, but it was 10-2 in Game 32 and 9-1 in Game 5. The Oilers set a playoff record for a series of any length with 35 goals.
The Oilers moved on to their first conference final, winning 8-4 and 8-2 in the first two games, and Chicago Blackhawks coach Orval Tessier asked the question.
“What do we do now? Put in a call to the Mayo Clinic for 18 heart transplants?”
The Oilers swept the series. And in their fourth year in the NHL, one year ahead of Plante’s prediction, were in the Stanley Cup final.
It had been as wonderful a scene as Edmonton had ever experienced playing host to a Stanley Cup final, but tickets to games 5 and 7 would go unused.
The Islanders swept the series to win their fourth straight Stanley Cup.
It was well after the final buzzer that the Oilers would trudge out of Nassau County Coliseum and earn their final and most important lesson about winning the Stanley Cup.
“Kevin Lowe and I were walking out of the rink after the final game and we walked past the Islanders dressing room,” Gretzky would later recall.
“We noticed it was pretty quiet in there. While there were people who were celebrating, it wasn’t the players. The players themselves were so exhausted, so tired and had so many ice packs, we could really see the price they had paid. Guys like Denis Potvin were really beat up. And we were fine. No problems at all. We got on that bus and Kevin said: ‘That’s the difference.’ They were wounded. We were fine.”
Guys like Denis Potvin were really beat up. And we were fine ... We got on that bus and Kevin said: ‘That’s the difference.’