Top 100 Oilers: Bill Ranford (11)

6 years ago

As command performances go, you have to look long and hard to find one better than the beauty Bill Ranford turned in over a stretch of seven weeks during the spring of 1990 when he backstopped the Edmonton Oilers to their fifth Stanley Cup and copped the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP along the way.

And talk about tough acts to follow as an exclamation mark to that post-season performance, well, they don’t get any better. Acquired in a trade with Boston that sent Andy Moog to Beantown a couple seasons earlier, Ranford was forced into the spotlight that spring with Grant Fuhr out with a bum shoulder. His transformation from back-up to backbone was nothing short of stunning, especially if you consider how badly his coming out party started.

Bill Ranford

Goalie — Catches Left
Born Dec 14 1966 — Brandon, MAN
Height 5.11 — Weight 185 [180 cm/84 kg]

Drafted by Boston Bruins

Round 3 #52 overall 1985 NHL Entry Draft

BY THE NUMBERS

Season	Age	Tm	GP	W	L	T/O	SV%	GAA	SO	MIN
1985-86	19	BOS	4	3	1	0	.906	2.50	0	240
1986-87	20	BOS	41	16	20	2	.891	3.33	3	2234
1987-88	21	EDM	6	3	0	2	.899	2.95	0	325
1988-89	22	EDM	29	15	8	2	.877	3.50	1	1509
1989-90	23	EDM	56	24	16	9	.887	3.19	1	3107
1990-91	24	EDM	60	27	27	3	.893	3.20	0	3415
1991-92	25	EDM	67	27	26	10	.884	3.58	1	3822
1992-93	26	EDM	67	17	38	6	.884	3.84	1	3753
1993-94	27	EDM	71	22	34	11	.898	3.48	1	4070
1994-95	28	EDM	40	15	20	3	.883	3.62	2	2203
1995-96	29	TOT	77	34	30	9	.885	3.29	2	4322
1995-96	29	EDM	37	13	18	5	.875	3.81	1	2015
1995-96	29	BOS	40	21	12	4	.894	2.83	1	2307
1996-97	30	TOT	55	20	23	10	.887	3.25	2	3156
1996-97	30	BOS	37	12	16	8	.887	3.49	2	2147
1996-97	30	WSH	18	8	7	2	.888	2.74	0	1009
1997-98	31	WSH	22	7	12	2	.901	2.79	0	1183
1998-99	32	TOT	36	6	18	4	.885	3.64	1	1812
1998-99	32	TBL	32	3	18	3	.881	3.90	1	1568
1998-99	32	DET	4	3	0	1	.918	1.97	0	244
1999-00	33	EDM	16	4	6	3	.885	3.59	0	785
10 yrs		EDM	449	167	193	54	.887	3.51	8	25004
4 yrs		BOS	122	52	49	14	.891	3.19	6	6928
2 yrs		WSH	40	15	19	4	.896	2.76	0	2192
1 yr		DET	4	3	0	1	.918	1.97	0	244
1 yr		TBL	32	3	18	3	.881	3.90	1	1568
Career			647	240	279	76	.888	3.41	15	35936

PLAYOFFS

Season	Age	Tm	GP	W	L	SV	SV%	GAA	SO	MIN
1985-86	19	BOS	2	0	2	37	.841	3.50	0	120
1986-87	20	BOS	2	0	2	47	.855	3.90	0	123
1989-90	23	EDM	22	16	6	613	.912	2.53	1	1401
1990-91	24	EDM	3	1	2	70	.897	3.56	0	135
1991-92	25	EDM	16	8	8	433	.895	3.37	2	909
1995-96	29	BOS	4	1	3	96	.857	4.02	0	239
1998-99	32	DET	4	2	2	95	.905	3.28	1	183
Career			53	28	25	1391	.897	3.07	4	3110

NOTABLE

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Ranford was a member of the Edmonton’s 1988 Stanley Cup team after being acquired from Boston in March of that season, but he’d essentially been a cheerleader while Fuhr carried the load – Fuhr played every post-season game on 1988 and 1989. Ranford didn’t play a minute between the pipes. Then came the 1990 post-season. With Fuhr out, Ranford, just 23, got the crease. No pressure, kid.

To say things started badly for Ranford is to understate in the extreme. In the first game of the opening round against Winnipeg, the Jets pumped seven pucks past Ranford in a 7-5 win. Four games in, the Jets led the series 3-1 and Ranford was being shown up by Winnipeg’s Bob Essensa and getting ripped righteously in the newspapers. Then, Ranford buckled down. The Oilers came back to win that series as part of a 15-3 run that ended with a 4-1 series win over Moog and the Bruins and a fifth Stanley Cup. In Game 1 of the final series Ranford made 50 saves and the Oilers won 3-2 in triple-overtime on Petr Klima’s goal.

“The way I started didn’t help our situation against Winnipeg,” Ranford said of being thrown into the deep end against the Jets to start the miraculous run. “It was a learning thing. Not having Grant and going with a young goalie, there was that transition and a learning process not just for myself but for the team . . . I took a lot of abuse for that game and that became a determining factor for me to prove everybody wrong, that was I was able to do it.”

THE STORY

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Aside from the 1990 post-season that defined his career, I’ll remember Ranford as one of the most entertaining stoppers to watch. Long before today’s watching-paint-dry butterfly style choked much of the life out of the crease, Ranford was a two-pad stack demon, an athletic, undersized goaltender who never gave up on a puck. Kick save. Pad stack. An accomplished flopper he was – in his rookie season with the New Westminster Bruins of the WHL in 1983-84, Ranford and Eldon Reddick formed the most athletic crease tandem I’ve ever seen.

Traded back to Boston in January of 1996 with that 1990 Oiler Cup team a fading memory, Ranford would also make stops in Washington, Tampa Bay and Detroit before circling back to Edmonton in 1999-2000 when he made 16 appearances as the back-up to Tommy Salo. Later, he’d play with Edmonton’s oldtimers in the 2003 Heritage Classic, throwing in a two-pad stack or two just for old time’s sake.

All told, Ranford won 167 regular season games and 28 more in the playoffs for the Oilers. Only Fuhr, with 227, has more career regular season wins in Edmonton’s crease. Nobody has faced more shots or made more saves. Simply put, while that playoff stretch in 1990 is what etched Ranford’s name in Oiler folklore and is what fans most fondly remember, there was much more to him than that.

This series will look at the top 100 Edmonton Oilers from the NHL era 1979-80 to 2014-15, starting with 100 and working up.

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