Edmonton Oilers' captain Mark Messier, center, along with his teammates holds the Stanley Cup above his head in voctory after the Edmonton Oilers defeated the Boston Bruins, 4-1, to win the Stanley Cup series in Boston May 1990.The Canadian Press
“It’s a magical time,” says the captain who delivered Edmonton its fifth Stanley Cup in seven seasons back in 1990.
“It’s just incredible,” says Mark Messier from his home outside New York. “Here we go again.”
Saturday evening, the Edmonton Oilers will meet the Florida Panthers in Game 1 of the 2024 Stanley Cup final – 18 years since the self-proclaimed “City of Champions” last reached this deeply into the playoffs.
In the 1980s the Oilers were hockey’s greatest dynasty, led by Wayne Gretzky and Messier to Cups in 1984, 1985, 1987, 1988 and again, minus Gretzky, in 1990. Two other times they reached the final but could not win the best-of-seven series, losing to the New York Islanders in 1983 and to the Carolina Hurricanes in 2006.
It was a time, says retired sportswriter Cam Cole, who covered the team in those glory years, when several factors came together to “completely transform Edmonton’s image and self-image.”
Edmonton Oilers head coach Glen Sather and several Oilers bear somber expressions as they watch the Stanley Cup championship series game with New York Islanders in Uniondale, N.Y., May 12, 1984.
Commonwealth Stadium had been built for the 1978 Commonwealth Games. Edmonton’s football team – then called the Eskimos, now the Elk – won five Grey Cups in a row, 1978-82, just before the hockey Oilers began their remarkable run. The Oilers were relatively new to the NHL, having been absorbed from the World Hockey Association in 1979. They came with a slim kid named Gretzky.
“Edmonton basically went from 1978 to 1990 as the hands-down sports capital of Canada,” Cole says. “Having the greatest player in certifiably the best hockey league in the world was a huge step up in civic confidence, no doubt, and the surrounding cast was so eye-popping it almost seemed unfair.”
Seven of those Oilers ended up in the Hockey Hall of Fame: Gretzky, Messier, Paul Coffey, Jari Kurri, Grant Fuhr, Glenn Anderson and Kevin Lowe. If Gretzky and Messier were the Edmonton superstars of those years, today’s stars are Connor McDavid, widely considered the best hockey player in the world, and German star Leon Draisaitl.
“I think there’s more than a little nostalgia attached to the franchise’s Cup aspirations,” Cole says.
“Nobody thought anything like that would ever be attainable,” Messier says. “Montreal, Toronto, Chicago – they were the NHL powers, not us. Yet here we are again in 2024.”
“What reaching the final means is a large exhale,” adds fellow Edmonton sportswriter Jim Matheson, who has covered the team for more than four decades. “The Oilers have been in nine playoff series the past three years. They have won six of them, yet there seems to be this legitimacy thing with the fan base … if you don’t get at least to the final, then it is an abject failure with McDavid and Draisaitl.
“The fan base is over the moon that the team’s in the final. Eighteen years ago, many of the fans were in junior high or grade school. Now, they’re adults and they’re partying. The final means the Oilers are legitimate again as a team.”
Glen Sather was coach of four of those early Oilers championships before moving on to the New York Rangers, where he has held various senior positions. “We really were the ‘City of Champions,’” he says. “Everybody bought into that and everyone liked that. The players really created what happened there. They were great players but also good people. It was just a lot of fun for everyone.”
The “fun” is certainly back following the Oilers playoff victories over the Los Angeles Kings, Vancouver Canucks and Dallas Stars. A victory over the powerful Panthers is far, far from certain, but the early support is certainly positive. “Time to bring the Cup home,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on X, formerly known as Twitter. “The whole country will be backing the Oilers,” added Gretzky on his social media.
“It feels good to maybe unite the country a little bit and have something to bring people together,” McDavid told Edmonton media this week. “Hopefully, we’re doing that for Canadians across the country.”
Wayne Gretzky, right, and coach Glen Sather as they watch teammates during Monday morning practice in Edmonton, May 9, 1983.The Canadian Press
Canadians are certainly taking note, whether it be McDavid’s superstitious habit of dressing the same before heading for the rink, the raucous crowd singing La Bamba at every victory, or the young woman who blew up the Internet by raising her Oilers jersey to flash the crowd.
There are, of course, the doubters and naysayers. McDavid has been tagged “McOverrated” by the Florida media. Few who saw his remarkable goal in Game 6 against the Stars would agree. “A generation ago someone would have said Connor McDavid could stickhandle in a phone booth,” Montreal sportswriter Michael Farber joked on X, “but now there aren’t any phone booths.”
Goaltender Stuart Skinner, relatively unknown and unheralded, was a large question mark at the start of the playoffs. By the last game played the crowd was chanting “STU! STU!” from the stands. Other players – notably defenceman Evan Bouchard and high-scoring forward Zach Hyman – have risen to the challenge and beyond.
One thing that has gone largely unnoticed is the remarkable coaching backstory of this year’s team. The Oilers were 3-9-1 and in 31st place in early November, when coach Jay Woodcraft was replaced by Kris Knoblauch. The 45-year-old Knoblauch, a native of Imperial, Sask., and a former university and minor-league player, had been coach of the Rangers’ farm team, Hartford Wolf Pack, before joining the Oilers and leading them to a 58-24-5 record over the remainder of the season. He added Paul Coffey as an assistant coach and the team’s defensive record while playing shorthanded has been remarkable in the playoffs.
Edmonton Oilers' goal tender Grant Fuhr watches teammate Jari Kurri (17), center in dark uniform, battle Los Angeles Kings' Steve Bozek for the puck during first period NHL playoff action in Los Angeles, April 10, 1982.Doug Pizac/The Canadian Press
Sather knew Knoblauch from his work in the Rangers’ system. “He’s so reserved and calm,” Sather says. “You can’t be screaming all the time. He’s just the kind of coach this team needed.”
Coffey’s return to the team he once starred for has also been impressive. “I have zero interest in being involved with anyone else but the Edmonton Oilers,” he recently told local media. “We are not an outpost, this place is a destination. We are going to win Stanley Cups. It’s an iconic franchise. Owned by an incredible man and supported by a city and province like I have never seen.”
That support and hope comes, of course, with enormous pressure to deliver.
“I know what it’s like to be there at this time of year,” Messier says. “I still feel like Edmonton is my city. There’s just so much energy. The players get caught up in it. Their families are caught up in it. The players, in my opinion, are part of the people. It was certainly the case in Edmonton because I was part of it. The players are part of the fabric of the city.
“I don’t think there’s a rink in the league that has so many jerseys on. And that’s just the people in the rink; there’s all the ones outside and at home wearing their jerseys.
“There’s a passion that’s comparable to anywhere in the world.”