[The trade] has been looked at from Gretzky's perspective a million times, but here is what it looked like from Carson's: "The first thing I hear is there have been death threats on [Oiler owner Peter] Pocklington, and they're hanging him in the streets in effigy. Just a barrage of negativism. Meanwhile, in L.A., where I've just bought a house, the first home I've ever owned, it's like a big party. The town was going berserk. And guess who's leaving? I was totally numb at the press conference when I was introduced to Edmonton."
True, the Oilers were defending Stanley Cup champions, but Edmonton? After growing up in Grosse Pointe Woods, spending two years in Montreal, followed by two more in Los Angeles, Carson certainly wasn't going to find the West Edmonton Mall—the city's chief attraction now that Gretzky was gone—enough to keep his engine charged all winter.
He was different from most hockey players—well rounded, cosmopolitan, inquisitive about the world. His favorite people to hang around with were not just athletes but young accountants, lawyers and stockbrokers. Most of his childhood friends had gone into business. On the mantel in his Grosse Pointe home, Carson keeps photographs of himself talking to Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford. He likes to read books on politics. Many of his Red Wing teammates call him Mr. Republican because of his conservative political leanings.
"It was reverse culture shock," he says of his exposure to Edmonton. "Most of the Oiler players come from small farming towns. They think Edmonton is Paris. Their idea of fun is going to a bar and getting hammered all night. That's not me. How do you give up your values, just to be accepted by the team?"
Carson was miserable. And he certainly wasn't going to make Edmonton fans forget Gretzky. Still, teamed with the Great One's old linemates, Jari Kurd and Esa Tikkanen, Carson did get 100 points (49 goals and 51 assists) for the second straight season.
So he had decided to play out his option. There was no getting around the fact that he didn't like living in Edmonton. It wasn't the money. Carson refused the Oilers' offer to renegotiate his contract because doing so meant signing a long-term deal. He simply wanted to work in a city in which he enjoyed living. Says Carson, "After the All-Star break I called Sather and told him, 'I don't think things are going to work here, and if you get a good offer, it might be best if you moved me.' "
Sather didn't make a deal, and Carson's first season in Edmonton ended on a sour note when the Oilers were bounced from the opening round of the playoffs by the Gretzky-led Kings. Carson returned to California to await a trade, but nothing happened. He reported to training camp, but still no deal was in the works. "The Oilers obviously weren't getting the hint," he says. "I kept asking myself, What do you do? What are your options?"
Near the end of camp, Carson's ice-time started to slip. He wasn't being used as often on the power play. He was being paired with wingers less skilled than Kurri and Tikkanen. Now Carson had a fresh concern. What if he got buried on the third or fourth line and had a poor season? What would that do to his status as a free agent? And what if he did play out his option?
According to the NHL's restrictive free-agent rules, the Oilers could keep him by matching any offer another club made to him. Recalls Carson: "I kept asking myself, What do you do? Keep playing? I decided that I had a few marbles in my hand, and, like in any business, I could either use those marbles or lose them." Four games into the 1989-90 season, Carson quit the Oilers.
Naturally, he was vilified in the Edmonton press, described as a spoiled, rich American crybaby who had walked out on his teammates. He was called a quitter. YANKEE GO HOME said one newspaper. The fact that for the previous eight months Carson had quietly urged Sather to trade him to a team based in a U.S. city—it didn't have to be Detroit—was largely ignored, because Carson had never taken his case to the press.