If you’ve hung around this long with the Time Travels series you’ve seen that quite a bit of stuff has happened in the history of the Oilers in just October and November. If this is your first time reading the series, I hope you’ll walk away educated to the fact that the 80s were a funny time for goaltending, the early 70s meant pro hockey returned to Edmonton and a teenager showed he was the real deal.
November 1st, 1971
Day One for the Oilers. While no one knew what this would turn into it was the start of a new era for Edmonton hockey as Bill Hunter’s Edmonton Oilers would join as a charter member of the World Hockey Association to begin play in the 1972-73 season.
The WHA would be the first true rival to the NHL since the 1920s and would raid NHL talent like no tomorrow. The first major player was Bobby Hull jumping from the Chicago Blackhawks to the Winnipeg Jets for what was (at the time) the largest deal in North American professional sports – $1.75 million over 10 years plus a $1 million dollar signing bonus.
The Oilers would be the first pro hockey team in Edmonton since the demise of the Western Hockey League’s Edmonton Flyers in 1963. They almost instantly received support from the locals be it at the old Edmonton Gardens or the new Northlands Coliseum during their WHA days.
Edmonton’s team was actually supposed to be a province-wide team for a year due to the proposed Calgary Broncos folding before the season began, but the plan to split games between Edmonton and Calgary never came to fruition. The rest, as they say, is history as the Oilers have remained in the capital city of Alberta.
(Fun fact: Another team that would not play in the first season of the WHA was called the “San Francisco Sharks”. They’d end up being relocated to Quebec City and becoming the Nordiques).
November 3rd 1978
“Skinny kid in #99 jersey scores on the Winnipeg Jets”
This happened often during the 70s and 80s and on a fall day in Edmonton, Wayne Gretzky did it for the first time, not just against the Jets but as a member of the Edmonton Oilers.
In his first game after being acquired from the soon-to-fold Indianapolis Racers, Gretzky put a slapshot past Jets goalie Markus Mattson 14 seconds into the 2nd period of what would go onto to be a 4-3 Oilers overtime win at home.
Fitting that a guy who people didn’t think had a slapper would have his first and one of his last goals as an Oiler come via the hardest shot in the game.
November 7th, 1987
In what was the greatest example of how wacky the 1980s were when it came to scoring and “LOL what’s defence?” Grant Fuhr recorded his first shutout in three years in a 5-0 win over the Buffalo Sabres.
Three seasons. Fuhr was never a big shutout guy only recording 25 in his almost 20 year career but it truly was amazing that he went multiple seasons without one even in the era of teams being able to at will score 11 or 12 goals and the save percentage of the average goalie being at .880 that season.
In terms of shutouts, the 87-88 season would be kind to him as he’d go on to record four in the season as a major cog on Edmonton’s run to a fourth Stanley Cup.
It wouldn’t be until 1998-99 as a member of the Calgary Flames that he would play in an NHL season of 80 or more games and go without a shutout again (He didn’t record a shutout in the lockout shortened 1994-95 campaign with the Sabres and LA Kings).
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