After decades of dark clouds and cold, barren winters, the storm in Edmonton is perfect again.
Leon Draisaitl made it official this week when the 10-year veteran signed an eight-year contract extension, all but guaranteeing he’ll get his wish and be an Oiler forever.
And it’s hard to imagine that captain and close friend Connor McDavid won’t be making a similar deal when he’s eligible to renegotiate next summer.
Forty years after Gretzky and Messier, Edmonton once again boasts two of the best players in the world, they are perennial Stanley Cup contenders, the organization is rock solid financially, free agents are taking pay cuts to be here and the off-ice family atmosphere is the envy of the league.
It’s been a very long time since it’s been this good in Edmonton — heck, it’s been a very long time since it’s been this good anywhere.
Not since a bunch of teenage phenoms turned the Oilers into hockey’s last dynasty has Edmonton been like this. The glory days Oilers were winning Cups, they had a tight-knit family atmosphere and free agents flocked here for a shot at a ring. It was perfect.
But even then you could see the end coming.
One by one the Boys on the Bus rang the bell and got off at the next stop. First Paul Coffey, then Gretzky, then Messier. They loved it here, but didn’t have a Daryl Katz paying the bills and couldn’t take ridiculous hometown discounts so owner Peter Pocklington could keep his head above water.
And thus began a slow deterioration from top of the mountain to the top of every player’s No Trade list.
After a swan song Stanley Cup in 1990, the winning was done. The Oilers were a scrappy, competitive team with a tight-knit dressing room that usually made the playoffs, but six series wins over the next nine years signalled the beginning of the end.
Travel (the Oilers flew commercial before 9/11), climate, lack of money, and a steady decline in performance turned Edmonton into the NHL’s version of Siberia. Like the superstars before them, Edmonton’s best players had to leave for lack of money. In a pre-cap era, the Oilers had become a farm team for big-market opponents with deeper pockets.
Pocklington sold Oilers in 1998, but the decay continued. Aside from one lightning-in-a-bottle run to Game 7 of the 2006 Stanley Cup Final, the Oilers didn’t win a single playoff round in the 2000s and missed the post-season six times. And the Chris Pronger saga inflicted terrible damage to Edmonton’s image that would take two decades to repair. Players didn’t want to come here and their wives wanted to be here even less. The Oilers were in a very bad place.
Katz assumed control in 2008, but it would be a rough beginning to what was supposed to be a new start. The Oilers and their Old Boys Club became something of a punch line as the club finished 30th, 30th, 29th, 24th, 28th, 28th, 29th, 23rd and 25th in a 10-year span and missed the playoffs nine times.
The Decade of Darkness was the low point in franchise history.
Then, a year after drafting Draisaitl third overall in 2014, Edmonton won the draft lottery from third-last place and the transformation began.
After his very rough start as a rookie owner, Katz realized that winning is more important than surrounding yourself with childhood heroes and made the tough calls to revamp the front office. He spends to the cap every year, sparing no expense, on or off the ice, to make the Oilers competitive and first-class. This time around, superstars are being paid what they deserve and don’t have to leave for greener pastures. The core is locked in.
Off the ice, the culture is as close as it’s ever been. These are players who’ve grown up together and created a bond that transcends the game. As Draisaitl pointed out, free agents want to come here and when they get here they don’t want to leave.
And now, most importantly, the Oilers are contenders again. They’ve played nine playoff rounds in the last three seasons, losing to the eventual Stanley Cup champions all three years, amid an atmosphere in the arena and around the city that captivated the hockey world.
Everyone understands it won’t be fully complete until they win a Stanley Cup, but this is the best it’s been in two generations of Oilers fans.
It won’t last forever. The oldest team in the league is getting older and there will come a time when the Stanley Cup window closes and another rebuild begins.
In the meantime, breathe it in Edmonton, it’s been a long wait.
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