Remember the Craig Berube era in Edmonton? What about the Mike Richter era? No? Well they happened. Technically. Thanks to off-season trades and NHL loopholes some of the most well known players in league history were actually property of the orange and blue (or copper and blue depending on the era) but never actually played for the squad. We’ll call them ‘paper Oilers’.
Some of the deals are well known while others have been lost in the annals of time, so let’s get into some of them!
Craig Berube is an Oiler (kind of)
At the end of the 1990-91 season, the Oilers and Flyers pulled off a massive trade, sending Jari Kurri who had spent the season playing in Italy along with Dave Brown and Corey Foster to Philly for Berube, Scott Mellanby and Craig Fisher. Out of those three guys only Mellanby would suit up for the Oilers and Berube would be on the move again in September 1991 as apart of the trade to Toronto that would send Grant Fuhr to Leafs as one of the final deals to signal the end of the Oilers dynasty. Who’d have thought that one the biggest enforcers of the 90s would be involved in trades with Kurri and Fuhr?
Berube would return to Alberta but as a member of the Calgary Flames in two stints, first from 1991 to 1993 and then in the twilight of his career from 2001 to 2003 and in each season he’d have no less than 100 penalty minutes for the Flames.
The Summer deals of Mike Richter and Brian Leetch
To young Avry, seeing these two names and “traded to Oilers” before I fully understood how contracts worked was the most shocking thing ever. I had no idea that they wouldn’t actually be members of the Oilers.
How did it happen that two New York Ranger icons ended up as members of the Oilers for a day in 2002 and 2003, respectively? A very funny loophole in the final pre salary cap CBA of the NHL.
In an effort to help teams who had lost more unrestricted free agents than they acquired, the NHL put in place a rule to allow those teams to be awarded compensatory draft picks beyond the first round.
So how did this involve the Oilers and Rangers? On June 30th, 2002 the Rangers traded Richter’s rights to the Oilers for future considerations. On July 1st Richter became a UFA; on July 4th Richter signed a new deal with New York.
What was the end result? Edmonton got the 72nd overall pick in the 2003 draft and took a player that would never play in Edmonton in the form of Russian centre Mikhail Zhukov. Those future considerations that New York ended up with? A fourth round draft pick in 2003 that they used to acquire Corey Potter. This is real twilight zone stuff as Potter would end up playing three seasons in Edmonton later in his career.
The exact same situation would happen a year later.
In the summer of 2003 the Oilers would trade Jussi Markkanen and their 4th round pick in 2004 to the Rangers for Leetch and surprise, surprise before you could blink, the two time Norris Trophy winner had resigned with the Rangers.
This weird loophole also saw Ed Belfour as a Nashville Predator and Mark Messier as property of the San Jose Sharks. Here’s hoping no one actually crested a Sharks Messier jersey.
Thomas Vanek and the Offer Sheet
Offer sheets are like a unicorn. When you see them you’re not sure if they’re real because it’s so magical and Brian Burke wants to challenge you to a barn fight over it if the Unicorn is named Dustin.
In this case, the offer sheet involved the Sabres and one Thomas Vanek in the summer of 2007. The Austrian left winger was coming a 43 goal, 84 point season and was becoming one of the faces of the Sabres when he signed a seven year, $50 million dollar offer sheet. Sadly for Kevin Lowe and company, then Buffalo GM Darcy Regier matched the deal as he could have ill afforded to have lost Vanek as that summer Chris Drury and Danny Briere said bye bye to the Queen City.
With the Oilers on the verge of fully commencing Rebuild 1.0, Vanek would have been nice to have had in the mix of the top six forwards with tough times coming straight ahead.
Dany Heatley
Need I say more beyond that for a headline? In the summer of 2009 it appeared that disgruntled former 50 goal man of the Ottawa Senators would be headed to Oil Country in exchange for Dustin Penner, Laidslav Smid and Andrew Cogliano, but WAIT, it would be for naught as Heatley would use his no movement clause to veto a deal to the Oilers.
In a matter of hours, Oiler fans jubilation turned into pure and unrelenting vitriol towards Heatley for turning down coming to Edmonton; instead he’d be shipped off to the San Jose Sharks that summer.
Fast forward to 2016 and the Oilers may have actually dodged a bullet as Heatley’s production numbers since his time in San Jose have dropped sharply and over the past few seasons he’s spent time in the AHL with the Florida Panthers and Anaheim Ducks organizations.
The 2001-02 Calder trophy winner spent last season playing in Germany and his return to North American pro hockey seems like it’s filled with nothing but question marks.
Honourable Mention:
This trade didn’t happen but I feel that it should still be brought up. Back in good ol’ 2003 the situation between Mike Comrie and the Oilers wasn’t exactly amicable. The man who then wore #89 was on the verge of being dealt to the Mighty Ducks of Anahiem for a young winger who was lightning things up in the OHL for the London Knights. His name? Corey Perry.
In December of the 2003-04 season the trade appeared to be all but done, until Kevin Lowe wanted Comrie to pay the Oilers $2.5 million to complete the trade. The rest, as they say, is history as the trade never happened and Comrie was instead traded to Philadelphia for Jeff Woywitka, a first round pick in 2004 and a third round pick in 2005.
Perry is still with Anaheim and in his 10 NHL seasons, he’s put up 30 goals six times and was a part of the squad in 2007 that beat Ottawa for their first Stanley Cup title. If only history played out differently…
What other paper Oilers are there that you can think of? Let me know in the comments!
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
