The Edmonton Oilers all-decade team

As we come to a close on the decade, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at what an Edmonton Oilers all-decade team would look like.

And for the most part, it was uh… depressing.

Edmonton has not been a good team these last 10 years as they’ve continued to drudge through the Decade of Darkness.

Since the start of the 2009-10 season, Edmonton has won the least amount of games in the NHL next to only the Vegas Golden Knights, who get a pass due to having entered the league in 2018.

But hey! Remember that one time they were in the playoffs? That was fun, wasn’t it?!

Nonetheless, I thought it would be fun to take a look at building an all-decade team for that (terrible) timeframe.

Leon Draisaitl — Connor McDavid — Jordan Eberle
Taylor Hall — Ryan Nugent-Hopkins — Ales Hemsky
Milan Lucic — Sam Gagner — Nail Yakupov
Ryan Smyth — Shawn Horcoff — Zack Kassian

Honorable mentions: Pat Maroon, David Perron, Andrew Cogliano

The Oilers had an interesting, very top-heavy forward group for the better part of the decade. Led by offensive juggernauts like Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl in recent years, Edmonton relied on the likes of Taylor Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and Jordan Eberle.

How could anyone forget Ales Hemsky? He played 231 games in Edmonton this decade, scoring 146 points in that time frame.

Milan Lucic, for many reasons, was one of the most talked about players this decade in Edmonton. His 243 games played ranks 10th in forwards this decade, as does his 104 points.

I think at times, people tend to forget that in his first two seasons in Edmonton, Lucic scored 84 points in 164 games.

Sam Gagner’s 363 games come in fifth in the decade while his 220 points come in sixth. I wrote about Gagner this weekend, and it’s great to see him back in Edmonton.

The bottom line is a mix of some veteran Oilers who closed out their careers this decade in Ryan Smyth and Shawn Horcoff, while we’ve seen the career resurgence of Zack Kassian in the last few seasons.

You can take a look at all the forwards who played this decade for Edmonton here.

Oscar Klefbom — Darnell Nurse
Jeff Petry — Justin Schultz
Ladislav Smid — Andrej Sekera

Honorable mentions: Kris Russell, Adam Larsson, Tom Gilbert

The Oilers backend this decade as been very bad, at best.

It’s been a group that’s lacked not only depth but true top-end talent, too. Players like Oscar Klefbom and Darnell Nurse have led the way being workhorses for the Oilers, while Edmonton saw the departure of both Jeff Petry and Justin Schultz via trades for draft picks.

Both are probably deals the organization regrets, in hindsight, given they’ve both gone on to have successful careers with the Montreal Canadiens and Pittsburgh Penguins.

Ladislav Smid grinded some hard minutes for the Oilers as a bottom-pairing defenceman for almost 300 games up to his departure in 2014, while Andrej Sekera was a much needed offensive defenceman for the Oilers for the four seasons he was here.

You can see all of the Oilers defencemen who played for the team here.

Cam Talbot
Devan Dubnyk

Honorable mentions: Nikolai Khabibulin, Ben Scrivens

Much like with the defence, Edmonton struggled to get consistent goaltending through this whole decade.

But the two who stand out most were Cam Talbot, and Devan Dubnyk. Both put up save percentages better than .910 both playing over 170 games for the team.

Talbot was a stalwart for the club during his three years in Edmonton helping carry the team to a nice playoff run in 2016-17.

Dubnyk, meanwhile, was never truly appreciated as a young goaltender in Edmonton. He played on some bad teams between 2009 and 2014, but still mustered up a very respectable .910 sv% winning only 61 of his 157 starts.

Here are all the goalies that suited up for Edmonton this decade.

Who would you pick for your all-decade team? Drop a line in the comments below.

Here’s a few that were sent in this week.