40 Moments: Jordan Eberle scores a beauty in his NHL debut
By Cam Lewis
4 years agoIn order to celebrate the Edmonton Oilers’ 40-year anniversary AND distract ourselves during this hockey-less nightmare, we’ll be re-living 40 amazing moments from Oilers history.
Since we probably should be watching that Calgary and Edmonton playoff series we’ve been craving for so long, I’m going to pivot this series over the next few days to look back at some incredible moments from the Battle of Alberta. Today, we have the first goal of Jordan Eberle’s career.
October of 2010. It was the dawn of a new era.
After making their improbable run to the Stanley Cup Final in 2006, the Oilers spent the following few years failing to rekindle the same magic. The team tried to make big splashes through free agency and through trades, but ended up just shuffling deck chairs on the titanic.
It was time for a change. An Oil Change. Rather than trying to retool, the Oilers were finally going to rebuild, stockpiling high-quality talent through the draft.
The Oilers came into the 2010-11 season with a new sense of hope after making Taylor Hall their first-ever first-overall pick in franchise history at the draft. Along with Hall, the Oilers would be debuting two other key pieces of their turnaround, 2009 first-round pick Magnus Paajarvi and 2008 first-round pick Jordan Eberle, who had become a cult hero thanks to his brilliant performances at the World Juniors.
A Battle of Alberta would be the setting for Edmonton’s young trio to make their much-anticipated debuts. While Taylor Hall was expected to be the star of the show, it ended up being Jordan Eberle grabbing the spotlight.
With the Oilers holding a tight 1-0 lead early in the third period, Eberle took a pass from defenceman Jim Vandermeer and announced his arrival to the NHL in the nicest way possible.
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To this day, I can’t think of a nicer first-career goal than that.
The Oilers would go on to win the game 4-0, getting the hype train around the team’s new young core flying off the rails. Watch out, Calgary. This was how Battle of Albertas were going to look from now on with the new kids in the picture. We all know how this whole thing ended up, but after all of those frustrating seasons in the late-2000s, it was exciting to believe in H.O.P.E.
Also, TSN’s spoof feature on Eberle robbing Hall of the spotlight in this game was hilarious.
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