The Missing Rings: The 1985-86 Edmonton Oilers
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bucks_oil
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- Aug 25, 2005
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Ah... the memories. (or sorta... being an east coast kid, I was in bed when that goal happened... but I remember the aftermath).
I was at the game. It still pisses me off we lost that one.
Bring Back Bucky
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Drivesaitl
Finding Hyman
I got angry, cursed Smith and Fuhr a bit, and then took it in stride. The context is the team had already won two cups in a row and were loaded. They were going to be back and learning experiences occur. Calgary got all the breaks in that one, they put together a team specifically suited to play us, and managed it.
Its the classic thing in team sports about the team that wants it more.
Would've killed me though if we lost game 7 in 87. I was at that game. What a bunch of emotion that was. When Glenn Anderson scored the 3-1 goal it was like Nirvana.
Conversely if the Oilers don't win that game 7 in 87, I don't know what the team morale would have been like subsequently. They might never have won another.
Its the classic thing in team sports about the team that wants it more.
Would've killed me though if we lost game 7 in 87. I was at that game. What a bunch of emotion that was. When Glenn Anderson scored the 3-1 goal it was like Nirvana.
Conversely if the Oilers don't win that game 7 in 87, I don't know what the team morale would have been like subsequently. They might never have won another.
9GWG9
C=NV
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Imagine not winning in 90. That one made a franchise and turned the rest of them into hall of famers.
Messrules11
6 Cups, elbows up.
- Nov 23, 2018
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Love Fuhr but Smith, Smith blew it. Could’ve been 5 straight Cups. And to Calgary? No wonder I hate them so much.
bucks_oil
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90, post gretz, kid line... that was my fave and they earned it the hard way
the4thlinegrinder
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And there would be talk the next 3+ decades of ‘The Curse of The Great One’ a la Babe Ruth in Boston.
rboomercat90
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Imagine not winning in 1984. There was talk then that they might have torn the team apart and gone in another direction had they not won.
Drivesaitl
Finding Hyman
One of the funny things about that series is how anticlimactic the actual SC final was. The Bruins backs were broke, the way I see it when Glenn Anderson scored a miraculous end to end goal in going through the entire Bruins club. Its very rare to see a goal that is so demoralizing. The Bruins had to be thinking here's an Oilers team without Gretz, without Coffey, maybe we can beat them this one time. Then Anderson takes them out of that comfortable notion with an astounding rush goal. That had to be a nightmare. Bruins looked nervous about that.
The particular play is interesting. Boston doing what they want to do in hemming the Oilers in their own zone, but then Anderson gobbles up the puck and its over.
The Oil had more trouble in the first round then the rest of the way. Once they got going it was hard to stop the train.
BudBundy
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- May 16, 2005
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I have a huge soft spot for that team too. Mess, Kurri, etc showing the world it wasnt just Wayne and a bunch of other guys winning Cups.
BudBundy
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BudBundy
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The Smith gaffe was obviously crucial, but nobody likes to talk about how Calgary largely outplayed us in that series. It still saddens me to this day that we didnt get the 5 (or more without the Gretzky trade) in a row, but sometimes you just have to tip your hat to your opponent. That series had the best and second best team in the league facing off, IMO.
bucks_oil
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That's a very fair and charitable comment. I liked our team a lot better after that loss as well. It was a necessary lesson in humility.
I remember that goal, too. You could just see the spectre of inevitability settle in across the entire Bruins bench after that goal.
I was at a high school party in St. Albert on the night they won it, and we were trying to decide whether or not to head down to Jasper Ave. to celebrate with the rest of the city. We decided to stay where we were, thinking (and I remember saying this out loud), "we'll go next year". That's how routine the Oilers' dominance had become in that era. Eh, we'll just catch next year's Cup parade...
All I can remember during those years is a couple of players being blamed, when I really put it on the whole team.
If Steve Smith had put the puck in his own net 5 times I'd easily be able to blame him, but it was just one goal and our team was beyond stacked back then. Regardless of whether we were playing in the regular season or the playoffs we should have been outscoring the opposition by a ton.
We can talk about how stacked Tampa bay is compared to other teams today but if you took those Oilers teams from back then we'd probably be 50-80% over the cap assuming everyone is getting paid what they're worth.
If you can imagine a hockey team so good that they'd need to spend over 120M in cap space just to pay for their players without overpaying them you'd more than expect them to blow every team out of the water.
Our team got complacent and cocky and let the foot off of the gas and we lost.
If Steve Smith had put the puck in his own net 5 times I'd easily be able to blame him, but it was just one goal and our team was beyond stacked back then. Regardless of whether we were playing in the regular season or the playoffs we should have been outscoring the opposition by a ton.
We can talk about how stacked Tampa bay is compared to other teams today but if you took those Oilers teams from back then we'd probably be 50-80% over the cap assuming everyone is getting paid what they're worth.
If you can imagine a hockey team so good that they'd need to spend over 120M in cap space just to pay for their players without overpaying them you'd more than expect them to blow every team out of the water.
Our team got complacent and cocky and let the foot off of the gas and we lost.
LastWordArmy
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The Klima goal was a backbreaker too. Anytime you lose in the third OT, its a killer
The Panther
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Glen Sather has a great quote about that 3rd OT in Boston. He said (and you can see it on the video) that at the start of that last OT, the Bruins' players were gassed and some were sitting on the floor of the bench during the breaks and delays. But on the Oilers' bench, nobody dared sit down, because it would admit weakness and look bad (or maybe because Messier would kill them). Sather said he knew, then, that the Oilers would win.
The Panther
Registered User
Getting back to 1986:
That's such a fascinating series. It really is the dividing point between the young, high-flying, offensive machine Oilers of 1981 to 1986, and the more mature, disciplined, better-balanced Oilers of 1986 to 1990. It was also the end of Paul Coffey's six years of happiness in Edmonton.
Calgary had the right game-plan and played it to (almost) perfection. The most remarkable thing was that the Flames won 3 of the 4 games in Edmonton, and almost won 4 out of 4, but for Andy's overtime winner. Anyone who thinks Steve Smith cost them the series is forgetting that rather inconvenient fact. Not once did the Oilers ever have the lead in the series (they trailed 1-0, 2-1, and 3-2). Gretzky was totally silenced in games one and two at Northlands (which never happened!), but did go on to play really well in games three, (esp.) four, five, six, and seven. But Kurri couldn't score and Paul Coffey was poor in general. (Easily overlooked is that Craig MacTavish scored 4 goals in this series, second only to Anderson and Gretzky.)
Rarely has one series shifted the balance of competition between two clubs so much: The Oilers' record against Calgary in the 24 regular season games prior to this series was 19-2-3. The Oilers' record against Calgary in the 24 regular season games after this series was 6-15-3.
That's such a fascinating series. It really is the dividing point between the young, high-flying, offensive machine Oilers of 1981 to 1986, and the more mature, disciplined, better-balanced Oilers of 1986 to 1990. It was also the end of Paul Coffey's six years of happiness in Edmonton.
Calgary had the right game-plan and played it to (almost) perfection. The most remarkable thing was that the Flames won 3 of the 4 games in Edmonton, and almost won 4 out of 4, but for Andy's overtime winner. Anyone who thinks Steve Smith cost them the series is forgetting that rather inconvenient fact. Not once did the Oilers ever have the lead in the series (they trailed 1-0, 2-1, and 3-2). Gretzky was totally silenced in games one and two at Northlands (which never happened!), but did go on to play really well in games three, (esp.) four, five, six, and seven. But Kurri couldn't score and Paul Coffey was poor in general. (Easily overlooked is that Craig MacTavish scored 4 goals in this series, second only to Anderson and Gretzky.)
Rarely has one series shifted the balance of competition between two clubs so much: The Oilers' record against Calgary in the 24 regular season games prior to this series was 19-2-3. The Oilers' record against Calgary in the 24 regular season games after this series was 6-15-3.
rboomercat90
Registered User
Big red flag that the Oilers lost the final regular season game against Calgary that year 9-2. They had dominated them like you said and when they laid that egg they gave the flames plenty of confidence. What an awful summer that was. In addition to losing to the Flames the way they did, that was also when Sports Illustrated broke their big cocaine story.
