The Final Night

By Avry Lewis-McDougall

As we all know this is the grand hurrah season at Rexall Place and recently it came out that for the final regular season game on April 6th against Vancouver and anyone who played for the Oilers is invited to come back for it. Anyone.

Of course for this season the team has already honoured such players as Todd Marchant, Steve Staios and Bill Ranford, but there’s a few guys who haven’t returned yet whom I would love to see hopefully come back to Edmonton for the final night of Rexall Place as the Oilers home.

Mike Grier

One of the toughest dudes that I have ever watched play. Mike Grier battled through injuries to be one of the most reliable forwards that the Oilers had during the late 90s and the early 2000s as he’d never play in less than 70 games during his six seasons in Edmonton and also put up a couple of 20 goal seasons as a member of the copper and blue.

Mike may have had stints later in his career with Washington, Buffalo, and San Jose but the bulk of his NHL career was spent skating on the wing of the arena formerly known as the Edmonton Coliseum and Skyreach Centre.

Tommy Salo

Yes, what many remember from Tommy Salo’s career is the slapper from centre ice that went in off of his head and propelled Belarus to a shocking Olympic quarterfinal win against Sweden in 2002 but for the Oilers from 1999 to 2003 he was their money netminder.

Salo won 147 games as an Oiler, played in two All Star games as Edmonton’s representative and is the all time leader in franchise shutouts with 23.

His squads may have never gotten past the first round but he gave his team a chance to win every time he strapped on the pads.

I can recall ye old arena on Wayne Gretzky Drive being filled to the brim with #35 Salo jerseys when I first went to an Oiler game and I guarantee you, you’ll see quite a few in April.

Chris Pronger

I know I may take some heat for this one but why not? In his lone campaign with the Oilers in 2005-06 he was one of the leaders on that blue line for that magical Cup run.

In the 80 regular season games that he played he would lead all defencemen on the team in scoring, be fifth in team scoring and his 56 points that season would be his 2nd highest point total in his career.

In the 2006 playoffs he’d put up 21 points and become the very first defenceman to score on a penalty shot in the Stanley Cup finals.

Having Chris Pronger in Edmonton meant playing against the Oilers was going to be that much more of a battle, and that 2006 team showed that you were going to get everything that they could throw at you every single night.

Sure he didn’t leave Edmonton on the greatest of terms and a year later seeing him win a Cup with Anaheim stung, but he’s still a big part of Oilers history no matter how you spin it.

Be it the WHA, or NHL, seeing alumni from all eras of the franchise is going to be something special, because as the slogan goes, once an Oiler, always an Oiler.