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

In that edition of Throwback Thursday, we watched the game where Leon Draisaitl torched the Predators, scoring four goals against them on March 2, 2020. Since playing the Predators again In two Thursdays, we’ll look at the Oilers’ record on Halloween.

The Oilers are in their 46th season since joining the National Hockey League. Interestingly, they only played 11 games against nine different opponents on Halloween, the most recent during the 2015-16 season. In those 11 games, they are 5-4-2, outscoring their opponents 40-30. A game, the first we will see, is a big reason for this.

1981-82

Edmonton’s first Halloween game came in their third season, when they faced the Québec Nordiques at Northlands Coliseum, and the Oilers routed them 11-4 to bring their season record to 9-4.

Wayne Gretzky scored 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 One finished with 92 goals. Also on the Oilers roster were Matti Hagman (twice), Brett Callighen, Glenn Anderson and Jari Kurri (also twice).

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

1982-83

The Oilers suffered their first loss on Halloween the following season, when they fell 3-2 to the Vancouver Canucks. The goals 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 goalkeeper that Wayne Gretzky has scored the most goals against with 29 goals.

Edmonton reached its first Stanley Cup Final in 1983, but with this loss, its season record became 4-6-3. The three times the Oilers came up 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 last season. .

1986-87

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

One of Vancouver’s goals was scored by Steve Tambellini, the future general manager of the Oilers. Throughout 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 the Oilers played twice on Halloween; the other team had its first meeting with the Oilers the following season.

1987-88

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

The two teams combined for 111 penalty minutes, which sounds like a ton in today’s day and age, but doesn’t even rank among the 86 games with the most penalty minutes in league history. Man, hockey in the 80s was a totally different beast and I wish I could have experienced it.

1990-91

From a high scoring game to a game that ended 1-0 in overtime, the Oilers fell to the original Winnipeg Jets 1-0 thanks to Pat Elynuik’s overtime winning goal 23 seconds into overtime. 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 straight loss, but it didn’t end 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 to bring their record to 27-22-3. They made the postseason and even made it to the Conference Finals, where they fell 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 was part of Wayne Gretzky’s business tree.

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

1995-96

By the time Halloween arrived in 1995, the dynasty was gone and a new core with the likes of Doug Weight, Jason Arnott, Todd Marchant and Miroslav Satan was installed. The Oilers defeated the New Jersey Devils 2-1 in this game. to bring his 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. Just like in the 1982 game against the Canucks, the opposing team had a goalie named Brodeur, and the Hall of Fame netminder saved 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 at 9:12 of the game. Brown was born in Birmingham, England, and is one of 50 players born in the United Kingdom to have played in the National Hockey League. In total, he played 64 games, the 26th most. He is also one of 10 UK-born players to have played in the NHL since the turn of the millennium.

Exactly one minute later, Boyd Devereaux scored a short-handed goal to score 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 game against the St. Louis Blues was the final one before the turn of the millennium, with the Oilers falling 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.

Interestingly, a lot of players from this game ended up working in hockey after their playing career 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 former head coach. head of the New York Islanders for two seasons.

As for the Blues, Marc Bergevin was the general manager of the Montréal 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 on the player of the NHL. Security.

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 bring their season record to 7-6-1. It was the second time they were shut out on Halloween, falling 1-0 to the Jets in 1990.

Both goals came before 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 received assists on both goals.

Before the 2009-10 season, the Oilers signed goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin (at the time he was 36 years old) to replace Dwayne Roloson. The Russian netminder had a solid season, posting a .909 save percentage in 18 games, but underwent season-ending back surgery in mid-January. His last season with the Oilers was in 2012-13, retiring on November 13, 2015… for eight years, before returning to the Continental Hockey League to play for Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod when he was 50 years old. Unfortunately, he never played in a KHL game that season.