Top 100 Oilers: Kevin McClelland (21)
6 years ago
When the Edmonton Oilers staged a reunion in 2014 to mark the 30th anniversary of their first Stanley Cup win back in 1984, Kevin McClelland was the only player from that team who didn’t attend. McClelland, coaching in Wichita at the time, had planned to drive to Edmonton – he’s afraid of flying – but he didn’t manage to get away in time to attend the big bash.
That’s noteworthy on a couple of fronts. First, I didn’t know that McClelland, who rode shotgun with the Boys on the Bus for parts of seven seasons, was afraid of anything. Second, it’s McClelland who scored one of the biggest goals in franchise history – the only goal in a 1-0 win over the defending champion New York Islanders in Game 1 of the 1984 Stanley Cup final. The goal that started the dynasty days the Oilers enjoyed in the 1980s.
Kevin McClelland
Right Wing — shoots R
Born Jul 4 1962 — Oshawa, ONT
Height 6.00 — Weight 190 [183 cm/86 kg]
Born Jul 4 1962 — Oshawa, ONT
Height 6.00 — Weight 190 [183 cm/86 kg]
Drafted by Hartford Whalers
Round 4 #71 overall 1980 NHL Entry Draft
BY THE NUMBERS
| Season | Age | Tm | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | S | S% |
| 1981-82 | 19 | PIT | 10 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 4 | 18 | 5.6 |
| 1982-83 | 20 | PIT | 38 | 5 | 4 | 9 | -18 | 73 | 70 | 7.1 |
| 1983-84 | 21 | TOT | 76 | 10 | 24 | 34 | 2 | 189 | 105 | 9.5 |
| 1983-84 | 21 | PIT | 24 | 2 | 4 | 6 | -7 | 62 | 40 | 5.0 |
| 1983-84 | 21 | EDM | 52 | 8 | 20 | 28 | 9 | 127 | 65 | 12.3 |
| 1984-85 | 22 | EDM | 62 | 8 | 15 | 23 | -11 | 205 | 96 | 8.3 |
| 1985-86 | 23 | EDM | 79 | 11 | 25 | 36 | 9 | 266 | 104 | 10.6 |
| 1986-87 | 24 | EDM | 72 | 12 | 13 | 25 | -4 | 238 | 76 | 15.8 |
| 1987-88 | 25 | EDM | 74 | 10 | 6 | 16 | 1 | 281 | 61 | 16.4 |
| 1988-89 | 26 | EDM | 79 | 6 | 14 | 20 | -10 | 161 | 43 | 14.0 |
| 1989-90 | 27 | TOT | 71 | 5 | 6 | 11 | -6 | 196 | 31 | 16.1 |
| 1989-90 | 27 | EDM | 10 | 1 | 1 | 2 | -1 | 13 | 7 | 14.3 |
| 1989-90 | 27 | DET | 61 | 4 | 5 | 9 | -5 | 183 | 24 | 16.7 |
| 1990-91 | 28 | DET | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -4 | 7 | 1 | 0.0 |
| 1991-92 | 29 | TOR | 18 | 0 | 1 | 1 | -3 | 33 | 5 | 0.0 |
| 1993-94 | 31 | WIN | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 19 | 1 | 0.0 |
| 7 yrs | EDM | 428 | 56 | 94 | 150 | -7 | 1291 | 452 | 12.4 | |
| 3 yrs | PIT | 72 | 8 | 12 | 20 | -19 | 139 | 128 | 6.3 | |
| 2 yrs | DET | 64 | 4 | 5 | 9 | -9 | 190 | 25 | 16.0 | |
| 1 yr | WIN | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 19 | 1 | 0.0 | |
| 1 yr | TOR | 18 | 0 | 1 | 1 | -3 | 33 | 5 | 0.0 | |
| Career | 588 | 68 | 112 | 180 | -38 | 1672 | 611 | 11.1 |
PLAYOFFS
| Season | Age | Tm | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | S | S% |
| 1981-82 | 19 | PIT | 5 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 5 | |||
| 1983-84 | 21 | EDM | 18 | 4 | 6 | 10 | 13 | 42 | 32 | 12.5 |
| 1984-85 | 22 | EDM | 18 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 75 | 22 | 4.5 |
| 1985-86 | 23 | EDM | 10 | 1 | 0 | 1 | -1 | 32 | 7 | 14.3 |
| 1986-87 | 24 | EDM | 21 | 2 | 3 | 5 | -6 | 43 | 24 | 8.3 |
| 1987-88 | 25 | EDM | 19 | 2 | 3 | 5 | -1 | 68 | 13 | 15.4 |
| 1988-89 | 26 | EDM | 7 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 16 | 7 | 0.0 |
| Career | 98 | 11 | 18 | 29 | 12 | 281 | 105 | 9.5 |
NOTABLE
Having been swept 4-0 by the Islanders in the 1983 Cup final, the Oilers showed up for the encore in 1984 needing a reason to believe they could unseat the reigning champs, who’d shown rather emphatically a year before that they weren’t ready to loosen their grip on the silverware. McClelland, a hard-nosed journeyman centre who’d been obtained from the Pittsburgh Penguins during the off-season, provided it.
McClelland hacked a puck past Billy Smith on the short side and Grant Fuhr took care of the rest with 34 saves for the shutout as the Oilers drew first blood in the first game of the 1984 Cup final in Uniondale. Dominated a year earlier, the Oilers never looked back. While the Islanders bounced back in Game 2, the Oilers blitzed them the rest of the way with 7-2, 7-2 and 5-2 wins, popping the champagne corks at Northlands Coliseum after Game 5.
“That’s the biggest win of our careers,” Paul Coffey said after that franchise-altering first game on Long Island. “Belief. That’s the biggest barrier we had to overcome. I mean, it’s tough for a team to believe they can beat a four-time Stanley Cup championship team. But now we believe. We believe!”
THE STORY
It was Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, who won the Conn Smythe Trophy with 26 points, and the usual suspects who took over the series in the final three games in Edmonton, but it was McClelland who got things started. McClelland, who had just eight goals that regular season, scored four in the 1984 playoffs – none bigger than that 1-0 goal against the defending champs.
McClelland was a role player here to be sure. In his best season, he had 36 points. His calling card was grinding, hitting and fighting – doing the dirty work, just like Marty McSorley, Dave Semenko and so many others did with Edmonton’s Stanley Cup teams. In the bad old days when the Battle of Alberta was a battle, when intimidation was a bigger part of the game, McClelland was front and centre.
By the time McClelland was done in Edmonton, he had his name engraved on the Stanley Cup in 1984, 1985, 1987 and 1988. In November 1989, McClelland was traded to the Detroit Red Wings with Jimmy Carson for Adam Graves, Petr Klima, Joe Murphy and Jeff Sharples. The first three played a big part in Edmonton’s fifth Cup win in 1990. In that context, McClelland had his fingerprints all over the Oilers’ glory years from start to finish.
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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