Since I didn’t put up an episode of Time Travels last week, Lucky #13 is going to be one of two editions (as well as being a combination of two weeks) for this week.
If your boss or teacher catches you reading this instead of doing work tell them you have to catch up on this series, they’ll understand. Maybe.
January 8th, 2003
He grew up watching the Cup winning teams of the 1980s and he’d end up becoming an Oilers hero in his own right in the Cup finals, but everything began in the NHL in a game against the Mighty Ducks in Anaheim during a road trip.
Fernando Pisani wouldn’t have a point in his debut in the show but he’d go to have eight goals and five assists in that rookie campaign and would go on to play over 400 games in Edmonton with his finest hour being the 2006 playoffs. In the Oilers run to the Cup final he’d put up 18 points and led all players in postseason goals with 14.
Pisani would remain with the Oilers until the end of the 2009-10 season after which he’d finish his NHL career with a season in Chicago, followed by one final pro year in Sweden. It’s no surprise that in retirement he hasn’t strayed from his YEG roots as an assistant coach for the University of Alberta Golden Bears hockey team.
January 16th, 1982
To most during Grant Fuhr’s rookie season he must have looked like a brick wall rocking a pretty sweet mask. Not only did the 8th overall pick of the 1981 draft go on have a streak of 23 games between the pipes without a loss., This streak although it ended in a 7-1 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs is STILL the franchise record for rookie goaltenders.
Fuhr’s rookie campaign would see him also share the crease with Andy Moog and Ron Low but he’d go on to end the regular season with a mark of 28-5-14, in Edmonton’s best NHL regular season as they’d finish the year with 111 points.
January 16th, 2017
Every day before today is history and even though this moment happened during the current season it’s one that will be included, not just for a the sake of a date but for its importance in diversity in hockey.
With his first career goal vs the Arizona Coyotes in a 3-1 win, Oilers rookie Jujhar Khaira became the third player of East Indian descent to score a goal in an NHL game (with Robin Bawa and Manny Malholtra coming before him).
It’s another positive mark on a franchise when it comes to diversity.
This was the first NHL franchise to have five black players on at once on ice during a game and also had the first Black Hockey Hall of Famer become an icon while wearing their jersey, here’s hoping that many more milestones can be reached with Khaira in an Oilers uniform as he’s shown progress in the Oilers system.
January 21st, 1997
He was their first draft pick in the NHL and scored their first goal in the biggest league in the world and he’d become the first player to have a number of four digits attached to the amount of games he played with the team based in Alberta’s capital.
Kevin Lowe became the first Oiler to play 1000 games in a career and at the time just the 27th player in league history to play 1000 games with one team. Lowe would spend 15 seasons with the Oilers and was a part of all five Stanley Cup titles and was captain during the 1991-92 season.
It was fitting that his 1000th game would come against the only other team he’d play for in the league as he’d pick up his sixth ring as a member of the Cup champion Rangers in 1993-94.
Lowe would be forced to retire during the 1997-98 season due to an inner ear condition but shortly after would embark on a long off ice career with the franchise first as an assistant coach under Ron Low, to later on being head coach, GM, Team President and now his current role as Vice Chairman of the Oilers Entertainment Group.
January 22nd, 1995
Captain Canada. Smytty. The man with the Mullet. Mr. “I got 94 problems but a Mullet ain’t one”. He had some iconic nicknames and was one of the faces of the Oilers in the late 90s and 2000s and his NHL began on this day in the lockout shortened 1994-95 season.
He wouldn’t record a point in a 4-3 win over the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and he’d only play in three of the Oilers 48 games but he’d return to the lineup the very next season and for the majority of his career would be known as one of the leaders of the Oilers of the post dynasty era.
In his career Smyth would hit the 30 goal mark four times as an Oiler with his career high being a 39 goal season in 1996-97 along with three 60+ point years in Edmonton.
His #94 may not be hanging in the rafters of Rogers Place due to the team having a policy of retiring the numbers of those in the Hockey Hall of Fame but I think this is a guy that the franchise should make an exception for.
This Coming Week:
They’ll be another edition of Time Travels to make up for lost time, and in Volume 14 we’ll go into Coffey and Gretzky extending scoring streaks that the human mind can barely comprehend and Glenn Anderson added to a team mark that truly showed how silly the rate in which the Oilers would light the lamp was in the 1980s.
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