Throughout the summer and into the fall, we’ll be counting down the days until the Edmonton Oilers begin their 2023-24 season with a daily trip down memory lane. Today at No. 26 we have Todd Marchant, a speedy forward who scored one of the most iconic goals in team history.

Marchant was selected by the New York Rangers in the seventh round of the 1993 draft after he scored 46 points across 33 games in his sophomore season at Clarkson University. He represented the United States at the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer and signed a contract to go professional after the tournament.

After scoring nine points in eight games with New York’s AHL team, the Binghamton Rangers, Marchant was called up to make his NHL debut. He played one game with New York before getting traded to the Oilers for Craig MacTavish.

MacTavish along with former Oilers teammates Mark Messier, Glenn Anderson, Jeff Beukeboom, Adam Graves, Kevin Lowe, and Esa Tikkanen went on to win the 1994 Stanley Cup with the Rangers while Marchant quickly became a regular player on a non-competitive Oilers team. He scored 47 points in 38 games for the Cape Breton Oilers in 1994-95 and then came up and scored 27 points in 45 games for the NHL club as a rookie.

Edmonton missed the playoffs in the first three seasons that Marchant spent with the team but they made it back in 1996-97. They went up against the juggernaut Dallas Stars in the first round and pulled off a shocking upset, which was capped off by Marchant’s overtime goal in Game 7 of the series.

Marchant played 678 games with the Oilers over parts of 10 seasons and scored 136 goals and 343 points for the team. He also added seven goals and 13 points across 43 playoff games in Edmonton.

 

Following a 20-goal and 60-point season in 2002-03, Marchant left the Oilers in free agency and signed a two-year contract with the Columbus Blue Jackets. A few weeks into the second season of that deal, the Blue Jackets tried to include Marchant in a trade to the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim for Sergei Fedorov. Marchant used his no-trade clause to veto the trade but the Blue Jackets put him on waivers and Anaheim claimed him anyway.

In his first season in Anaheim, Marchant played a huge role in helping the Ducks reach the Western Conference Final, as he scored 13 points across 16 playoff games before losing to the Oilers. The following season, the Ducks went all the way and won their first Stanley Cup in team history.