Throwback Thursday: A history of Oilers games on Halloween

For the second time in two weeks, the Edmonton Oilers will play the Nashville Predators on Thursday.

In that edition of Throwback Thursday, we looked at the match where Leon Draisaitl torched the Predators, scoring four goals against them on March 2, 2020. Ever since they played the Predators again in two Thursdays we’ll be looking at the Oilers record on Halloween instead.

The Oilers are in their 46th season since joining the National Hockey League. Funnily enough, they have only played eleven games against nine different opponents on Halloween, most recently during the 2015-2016 season. In those eleven games they are 5-4-2 and outscore their opponents 40-30. One game, the first we’ll look at, is a big reason for that.

1981-82

Edmonton’s first Halloween game came in their third season, when they took on the Québec Nordiques at the Northlands Coliseum, with the Oilers defeating them 11–4 to bring their season record to 9–4.

Wayne Gretzky was responsible for four of these goals, scoring his 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th goals of the season in what became the highest scoring season of all time, as the Great finished with 92 goals. Matti Hagman (twice), Brett Callighen, Glenn Anderson and Jari Kurri (also twice) were also on the scoresheet for the Oilers.

It’s not Edmonton’s largest margin of victory, nor the most goals they’ve scored in a game (they won another 11-4 games less than two months later), but it was the most goals in a game they’d scored to that point had scored.

1982-1983

The Oilers suffered their first Halloween loss the following season, falling 3–2 to the Vancouver Canucks. Scoring in this game were Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier. Richard Brodeur (no relation to Martin) took the win, but a fun fact about him is that he is the netminder against whom Wayne Gretzky has scored the most with 29 goals.

Edmonton made their first Stanley Cup Final in 1983, but with this loss their season record became 4-6-3. The three times the Oilers fell short in the Stanley Cup Final, they started their first 13 games with a 4-6-3 record, a 6-6-1 record in 2006 and a 2-9-1 record last season.

1986-1987

Four years later, the Oilers would get revenge on the Canucks by defeating them 6-2 to bring their season record to 6-2. At two different points in this game the Oilers trailed by one goal, but heading into the third period with the score tied 2-2, the Oilers took control, with Gretzky scoring two goals and Paul Coffey and Mark Messier scoring once each scored. That was Messier’s second of the game, with Mike Krushelnyski scoring the other goal in the second period.

One of Vancouver’s goals was scored by Steve Tambellini, yes, the future Oilers general manager. During his 10-year career, he scored 160 goals and 310 points in 553 games, with the 1986–87 season being his penultimate season.

Vancouver was one of two teams to play the Oilers twice on Halloween, the other team having their first meeting with the Oilers the following season.

1987-1988

The following season, the Oilers faced the New Jersey Devils and fell 6-5, bringing their season record to 6-5-0. But that’s okay, because the Oilers won the Stanley Cup in 1988. Early in the third period, Pat Verbeek scored to make it 6-3 for the Devils. Despite goals from Mark Messier and Glenn Anderson in the final five minutes of the game, the Oilers fell short in their comeback bid.

The two teams combined for 111 penalty minutes, which sounds like a lot in today’s day and age, but isn’t even in the top 86 most penalty minutes in league history. Man, 80s hockey was a whole different beast and I wish I could have experienced it.

1990-91

From a high-scoring game to one that ended 1-0 in overtime, the Oilers fell 1-0 to the original Winnipeg Jets thanks to Pat Elynuik’s overtime winner 23 seconds into the extra frame. After winning a surprising Stanley Cup just a few months earlier, the Oilers fell to 2-7-2 with this loss.

This game marked their fifth loss in a row, but they didn’t stop there as they lost four more games to bring their season record to 2-11-2. Over their next 37 games, they went 25-10-2, bringing their record to 27-22-3. They made it to the postseason and even reached the Conference Finals, where they lost to the Minnesota North Stars in five games.

1992-93

Two seasons later, the Oilers faced the Capitals and defeated them 4-2 to bring their season record to 3-8-1. Craig Simpson, Brian Glynn, Esa Tikkanen and Josef Beránek, who were part of Wayne Gretzky’s trading boom.

Bill Ranford had an assist in this game, the 13th assist of his career. Overall, the netminder’s 24 assists are tied for 16th in all-time scoring for the position. The 1992–93 season was also the first season that the Oilers missed the playoffs since joining the National Hockey League.

1995-96

By the time Halloween arrived in 1995, the dynasty was long gone and a new core emerged that included Doug Weight, Jason Arnott, Todd Marchant and Miroslav Satan. The Oilers defeated the New Jersey Devils 2-1 in this game. to bring their season record to 4-5-1.

This was also the second and last time the Oilers played an opponent they played on a previous Halloween. Like the 1982 game against the Canucks, the opponent featured a netminder with the last name Brodeur, with the Hall of Fame netminder saving 24 of 26 shots in this game.

1998-99

Three years later, the Oilers hosted the Mario Lemieux-less Pittsburgh Penguins and defeated them 4-1 to bring their season record to 5-4-0.

Kevin Brown opened the scoring with a power play 9:12 into the game. Brown was born in Birmingham, England, and is one of only 50 British-born players to have played in the National Hockey League. In total he played 64 games, of which the 26th was the most. He is also one of only ten British-born players to have played in the NHL since the turn of the millennium.

Exactly one minute later, Boyd Devereaux scored a shorthanded goal for the winning goal. Andrei Kovalenko scored his second goal of the season late in the second period, followed by a Penguins goal from Rob Brown (no relation, he’s from Kingston, Ontario). Mike Grier scored late in the third period to give the Oilers a 4-1 victory.

1999-00

The match against the St. Louis Blues was the final before the turn of the millennium, with the Oilers going down 3-2 to the Blues after taking an early 2-0 lead. With the overtime loss, the Oilers moved to 2-2-2-2 on the season. Doug Weight and Janne Niimimaa scored the goals for the Oilers in this game.

Funnily enough, a lot of players in this game got jobs in hockey after their playing careers ended. On the Oilers side, Dan Cleary serves as Detroit’s Director of Player Development, Mike Grier serves as general manager of the San Jose Sharks, Jason Smith is currently an assistant coach for the Lehigh Valley Phantoms and Doug Weight was the ex-head coach of the New York Islanders for two seasons.

As for the Blues, Marc Bergevin was the general manager of the Montreal Canadiens and now serves as a senior advisor to the general manager of the Los Angeles Kings, Craig Conroy is the general manager of the Calgary Flames and Chris Pronger worked in NHL Player Safety.

2009-10

The first Halloween game played in the 21st century was in 2009, when the Oilers fell 2-0 to the Boston Bruins to push their season record to 7-6-1. It was the second time they were shut out on Halloween, when they lost 1-0 to the Jets in 1990.

Both goals came midway through the third period, as Blake Wheeler scored his fourth goal of the season and Valdimír Sobotka scored his first of the season just over four minutes later. Daniel Paille provided assists for both goals.

Before the 2009–10 season, the Oilers signed netminder Nikolai Khabibulin (he was 36 years old at the time) to replace Dwayne Roloson. The Russian netminder had a solid season with a .909 save percentage in 18 games, but suffered season-ending back surgery in mid-January. His final season with the Oilers was in 2012–13, after which he retired for eight years on November 13, 2015, before returning to the Kontinental Hockey League at the age of 50 to play for Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod. Unfortunately, he never played in a KHL game that season.