December 30th, 1981
50 in 39. Need I say more? Not really, but I probably should. The 1981-82 season was one of the most incredible seasons for any athlete in not just hockey, but in sport as Wayne Gretzky would go on to put up 212 points and 92 goals in his third NHL season. Scoring 50 goals before anyone else in the NHL had 30 was just Wayne saying that he was here to change the game forever.
On the night before New Year’s Eve, Gretzky sat at 45 goals, needing 5 more to shatter the mark of 50 goals in the first 50 games of a season which had been first set by Maurice Richard in 1944-45. It was later equaled by Mike Bossy in 1980-81.
50 in 50 was incredible, but 50 before the halfway mark of the season? Who had even considered that as possible?
With the Cooperall clad Philadelphia Flyers in town, they’d become the victims of a performance that could have been straight out of a Disney movie. Gretzky would score five times, with the fifth goal coming as the clock was ticking down to :00 in the 3rd as he’d flip one past a sprawling Bill Barber at centre ice. He was trying valiantly to do his best to prevent Gretz from making NHL history on his empty net in a 7-5 Oilers win.
Wayne would take it easy on the rest of the league by 1983-84 though, as he’d only score 50 in 44 games the next season. He always had the rest of the league in his mind during his prime, no wonder he’s so revered.
December 31st, 1985
You may need to sit down for this one. Once upon a time ago the Oilers won the New Year’s Eve game. I know, and if you fainted that’s your problem because I told you to sit down.
All time, in almost 40 NHL seasons, the Oil have only won twice on the final day of the year and that last win came against the Flyers. This volume of Time Travels should really be titled “When Philly met Edmonton”.
In front of a Northlands crowd who probably couldn’t wait to burn the midnight oil (Jasper Ave during the dynasty days must have been something else) the home side would win 4-3 thanks to a Gretzky hat trick and Dave Hunter getting in on the goal scoring.
Over 30 years later most of the fan base waits for another win on New Year’s that they’ll most likely be unable to remember the next day.
January 2nd, 2007
1000 anything is big. 1000 times late for school, 1000 times flipping a water bottle successfully and on this day the Oilers won their 1000th regular season game in the NHL. The season after the 2006 run to the Cup final saw this squad lose many of their key cogs from that run via trade, injuries and free agents leaving but they were still a team above .500 in early January. On this night, they’d dispatch the Florida Panthers 4-1 to reach the mark.
Raffi Torres, Ales Hemsky, Fernando Pisani and Ryan Smyth would be the Edmonton goal scorers as only the Montreal Canadiens and Philadelphia Flyers reached the 1000 win mark faster in league history.
That would be one of the last bright spots of that 2006-07 season however, as after holding steady through January and February, the wheels would completely fall off as they’d go 1-12-1 in March. Three points in an entire month. As much as I try to forget, that my mind won’t let me.
Next Week:
In lucky Volume 13 we’ll look at an unbeaten streak broke by an unlikely team, the NHL debut of a soon to be local Oilers’ hero and an Oilers’ netminder of the 2000’s reaching a pretty historic mark in the annals of the franchise.
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