Warning: Reader discretion is advised before we get into the latest edition of Time Travels as the following describes one of the most one sided victories in NHL history. If you’re a Vancouver Canucks fan please close this article.
November 8th, 1985:
If you’ve ever attended an NHL game and one team scored 10 goals in a game, consider yourself lucky as that feat has happened less than once a season. if you were at the Oilers 13-0 victory over Vancouver Canucks, you were witness to first degree assault of Frank Caprice in his own crease.
The box score of this game looks like something that I wouldn’t ever be able to accomplish in NHL 17. Dave Lumley had a five point night, Jari Kurri scored twice while Mark Messier, Craig MacTavish, Raimo Summanen, Glenn Anderson, Dave Hunter, Mark Napier, Mike Krushelnyski and Lee Fogolin each added a goal of their own on the night.
The third period was the absolute worst for the Canucks as they allowed seven goals in the frame. It’s too bad Roger Nielson had left the franchise by the 85-86 season because he may have brought back the white flag to wave at Pacific Coliseum to hopefully have ended things early.
Incredibly, the Canucks were able to actually get something on Andy Moog as he had to turn away 29 shots for the shutout. Vancouver would rebound from that to make the playoffs (in the lace up your skates and you make it in era) only to be swept by the Oilers in the Smythe Division Semi finals.
The 13-0 drubbing still stands as one of the last times that an NHL team has scored 13 goals in a game.
November 9th, 1984:
The current day Oilers getting off to a 7-1 start sent everyone into a frenzy but imagine if the current bunch started off by going unbeaten in their first 10 games? Or 15? Such was the case for the defending Cup champs to kick off the 1984-85 season as with an 8-5 win over the Washington Capitals they’d set a new NHL record with a mark of 12-0-3.
Repeating this hasn’t been an easy feat in the annals of NHL history as yet. The Chicago Blackhawks of 2012-13 set the record by being the first team to get 20 points in their first 20 games; they were not unbeaten as they went 17-0-3 in that stretch, since we’ve now swapped ties for overtime losses in the standings column.
That wouldn’t even be the most impressive feat for the franchise during the year as Wayne Gretzky would go onto record his third of four TWO HUNDRED point seasons and the Oilers would lead the league with 401 goals, a season after setting the NHL record with 446.
If any goalie was able to get eight hours of sleep before a game vs Edmonton from 1979 to 1990 I’d have been very impressed.
November 10th, 1974
The WHA days of the Oilers saw them move into the bright and shiny new Northlands Coliseum,. It also saw (for one season) one of the all time greatest goalies in NHL history come out of his second retirement after coaching the Quebec Nordiques in 1973-74 to at the age of 45 to play in a rival league in the form of one Joseph Jacques Omer Plante for the 1974-75 season.
On the first night of big league hockey at Edmonton’s newest arena, Plante but would turn aside 20 shots as the Oilers would defeat the Cleveland Crusaders 4-1 who would have a future Hockey Hall of Famer of their own in net as Gerry Cheevers would leave Massachusetts and the Boston Bruins for Ohio but ended up taking the loss in this one.
Plante would only play home games for Edmonton in his one season with the club and for a goalie in his mid 40s who hadn’t played in over a year he put up a very respectable mark in 31 games of 15-14-1 with a GAA of 3.32.
Jake the Snake had planned on playing the 1975-76 season with the Oilers but tragedy would strike as he’d learn during training camp that his youngest son had passed away and he would announce his third and final retirement.
November 12th, 2001
It’s Hockey Hall of Fame Induction time in Toronto so I’d be remiss if I didn’t end this article without saying that 15 years ago one of Finland’s finest NHLers of all time would go into the Hall in the form of Jari Kurri. He was inducted in a class with Dale Hawerchuck, Slava Feitsov and Mike Gartner.
As an Oiler, Kurri would be the first European trained player to break both the 60 and 70 goal marks, as well as 130 points in a season. His 135 point season in 84-85 would remain the highest single season point total for a European trained player until Jaromir Jagr broke it in 1995-96 with 149 points. Kurri’s total still remains the highest mark for a Finish player.
Kurri would become the fifth Oiler to be inducted into the Hall of Fame after Jacques Plante in 1978, Norm Ullman in 1982, Glen Sather in 1997 and Wayne Gretzky in 1999.
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