TOP 100 OILERS: FERNANDO PISANI (55)
7 years ago
For the younger generations of Edmonton Oilers’ fans, the team’s journey to Game 7 of the 2006 Stanley Cup final is about as good as it gets, as close to the glory days of the franchise as they’ve experienced. Before the heartbreak of a 3-1 loss in Carolina, the Oilers took their faithful on an unexpected and unlikely thrill-ride absolutely nobody saw coming when the season began.
Fernando Pisani was the embodiment of those glorious eight weeks, the poster boy for a mind-bending playoff run that began with a stunning first-round upset of the Detroit Red Wings and then grew into something that had Oiler fans believing anything was possible – a stretch in which Pisani scored 14 goals and played the best hockey of his life. The stuff of legend, it was, and still is.
Fernando Pisani
Right Wing — shoots L
Born Dec 27 1976 — Edmonton, ALTA
Height 6.01 — Weight 205 [185 cm/93 kg]
Drafted by Edmonton Oilers
Round 8 #195 overall 1996 NHL Entry Draft
BY THE NUMBERS
Season | Age | Tm | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | S% | ATOI |
2002-03 | 26 | 35 | 8 | 5 | 13 | 9 | 10 | 25.0 | 10:43 | |
2003-04 | 27 | 76 | 16 | 14 | 30 | 14 | 46 | 16.2 | 12:46 | |
2005-06 | 29 | 80 | 18 | 19 | 37 | 5 | 42 | 13.7 | 13:51 | |
2006-07 | 30 | 77 | 14 | 14 | 28 | -1 | 40 | 9.9 | 16:54 | |
2007-08 | 31 | 56 | 13 | 9 | 22 | -5 | 28 | 13.5 | 16:32 | |
2008-09 | 32 | 38 | 7 | 8 | 15 | -1 | 14 | 9.7 | 15:19 | |
2009-10 | 33 | 40 | 4 | 4 | 8 | -16 | 10 | 7.4 | 14:35 | |
2010-11 | 34 | 60 | 7 | 9 | 16 | 0 | 10 | 9.7 | 12:34 | |
7 yrs | EDM | 402 | 80 | 73 | 153 | 5 | 190 | 12.8 | 14:32 | |
1 yr | CHI | 60 | 7 | 9 | 16 | 0 | 10 | 9.7 | 12:34 | |
Career | 462 | 87 | 82 | 169 | 5 | 200 | 12.5 | 14:1 |
PLAYOFFS:
Season | Age | Tm | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | S% | ATOI |
2002-03 | 26 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 1 | -2 | 2 | 12.5 | 13:48 | |
2005-06 | 29 | 24 | 14 | 4 | 18 | 4 | 10 | 28.6 | 17:12 | |
2010-11 | 34 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 0 | 0.0 | 7:55 | |
Career | 33 | 15 | 4 | 19 | 1 | 12 | 25.0 | 15:44 |
NOTABLE
I didn’t hear Bob Cole’s call of Pisani’s shorthanded overtime winner in Game 5 in Carolina because I was in the building blinking to see if what I thought I’d witnessed really happened as the bench emptied to mob Pisani, but I bet you heard it. And I bet it still gives you goosebumps when you hear it or watch it today.
Pisani’s snipe, top shelf snapshot over the glove of Cam Ward after he snatched the puck on a Rod Brind’Amour pass attempt at the blueline, was his 11th of the post-season and it gave the Oilers a 4-3 win, sending the series back to Edmonton for Game 6. A shorthanded overtime winner?
How often does that happen? How often does any of what we saw in the spring of 2006 – 14 goals, including five game-winners in a span of 24 games by a player who never scored more than 18 goals in a season — happen? Pisani was the unlikeliest of heroes, an Edmonton boy who’d toiled in the AHL and didn’t even make it the NHL until he was 26. It was perfect.
THE STORY
Pisani never came close to attaining the heights he did during those eight weeks before the 2006 playoffs, and he never came close to replicating them again afterward – if that’s even possible. Pisani would have a distinctly underwhelming 28-point season in 2006-07 and then have his career derailed by ulcerative colitis, a condition that ravaged him.
Pisani came back after missing the first 26 games of the 2007-08 season. He’d score 13 goals and earn the team’s nomination for the Bill Masterton Trophy for doing so, but he was never the same. Pisani was limited to 38 games the season after and 40 games the season after that before catching on with the Chicago Blackhawks for 60 games in 2010-11. Then, after 462 NHL games, the unofficial mayor of Edmonton’s Little Italy was done.
Had Pisani not caught lightning in a bottle the way he did for those eight weeks in 2006, he wouldn’t be on this list and his exploits wouldn’t be etched in the minds of every Oiler fan who witnessed them during that exhilarating and stunning run to Game 7. But he did and he is, and what a wonderful, magical memory it is.
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.
Listen to Robin Brownlee Wednesdays and Thursdays from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. on the Jason Gregor Show on TSN 1260.
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