The All-Time Oilers Roster

Over the past week I locked the Nation writers in a room to battle and argue over who would make the all time Oilers roster. What is an all time roster? We’re talking about the absolute best 23 players that the Oilers have to provide. We argued. We slapped. We struggled to find the wifi password. Finally, after days of debate we put our votes to paper and came up with a list of the best Oilers team imaginable. Will you agree? Probably not. Neither did we.

Before I get to the list I wanted to give you guys the rules that we were working with. We asked each writer to come up with the Oilers equivalent of an Olympic type roster. All I mean by “Olympic roster” is that we weren’t thinking about who would play first line/fourth line/wherever, we were just thinking about the best possible group of guys that you could ice using players from the past and present. After the votes were in, I counted them up and compiled the roster based on the lists provided. Each writer’s list consisted of the top four centres, top eight wingers, three extra skaters, six defenceman, and two goalies. The only catch was that the players had to have played at least one full season as an Oiler. Easy enough, right? Cool.

Now let’s suspend disbelief and pretend that all these guys do not have ages varying from 20something to 50 something and make up the best possible Oilers team in the history of the world! 

Could we ever have a list of top centres for the Oilers (or the NHL) that didn’t include Gretzky and the Moose at the very top? No. No we could not. Not surprisingly we all agreed on the first three centres that should make the team – the votes for Gretzky, Messier, and Weight were unanimous. Although Doug Weight may not necessarily be in the same category as the first two, he was easily the best Oilers player in some of those lean 90’s years. The interesting part of the top four centres vote came with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins sneaking into the fourth spot. Lil Nugey snuck on by making four of the six lists provided by the writers. 

Other notable votes went to Vincent Damphouse and Andrew Cogliano.

Coming up with a list of the best wingers to play for the Oilers ended up being tougher than I thought. There were some strong Oiler performers omitted from the list, but when you can only have eight players that’s bound to happen. The first two wingers – Kurri and Anderson – were easy to choose with 2497 career points between them. From there, the rankings of 3-8 changed considerably based on who’s list I was looking at. Guys like Smytty, Tikkanen, and Taylor Hall made appearances on every writer’s list but in varying positions. The final three spots was where the list got really interesting. Hemky, Simpson, and Eberle all had votes in four of six lists and just narrowly edged out guys like Petr Klima and Bill Guerin. 

Players mentioned in the “close but no cigar” category include the aforementioned Petr Klima and Bill Guerin.

The extra forward category went to the players that could be called upon to fill in when/if needed. These players all have a well rounded game and would be able to play up and down our all time list when injury struck. Some of you will be unhappy to know that the unanimous vote in the “extra skater” category went to Shawn Horcoff. Yes, that’s the same Shawn Horcoff that we all blamed for years of Oilers hardships. To be fair to comrade Horcoff, this is a guy that was defensively sound, and able to chip in a few points here and there, so it’s hard to knock this selection. Jason Arnott and Jimmy Carson both rounded out the list of extra forwards by getting votes from two of six writers. When you have a team with Jason Arnott (938 career points) and Jimmy Carson (561 career points) as your extra forwards, you’re in a pretty good spot. 

Other notable mentions in the extra forward category include Georges Laraque and Dave Semenko

As you will see by our list of the top six defenceman in Oilers history, there aren’t any current Oilers on the list. It makes a lot of sense when you think about the fact that keeping the puck out of the net has been a major problem over the better part of the last decade. The top three – Coffey, Pronger, and Lowe – were all unanimous votes by all six writers. As much as I didn’t want to include Pronger on my ballot it’s hard to argue with the work that he did in his season as an Oiler. Same goes for Kevin Lowe — you can question his work in management all you want, but it’s pretty hard to find fault with his playing career. Charlie Huddy, a solid two way defender, ranked fourth in the voting (making five of six lists) with Steve Smith following at number five. Despite the fact that most of you youngins know Steve Smith as the guy that scored on himself, he was a very solid defender. Randy Gregg (that’s DOCTOR Randy Gregg to you) snuck into the final spot by making three of six lists. 

Other mentions in the defence category include – Jason Smith, Janne Niinimaa, and Sheldon Souray. 

The goalie category finished with Grant Fuhr and Bill Ranford making almost every list with mileage varying from person to person. Grant Fuhr narrowly edged out Ranford as the best goalie in Oilers history because of his entry into the Hall of Fame and amazing 80’s porn moustache. To me, you can’t go wrong with either of these guys stopping the puck for your all time team. Both goalies backstopped the Oilers to a Stanley Cup, and both goalies make a fine choice for our list.

Other mentions include – Curtis Joseph, Dwayne Roloson, and Andy Moog

For some of you (likely many of you) you may not agree with all the players or goalies that we chose to make our roster of the top 23 players in Oilers history. Now is the time to make your own list in the comments section. I’m asking you to submit your roster below and see how your list compares to ours. Think you’re smarter than the Nation writers? It’s time to prove it.