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Flashback Friday: Oilers trade for Kevin McClelland
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Photo credit: Edmonton Oilers
Ryley Delaney
Dec 5, 2025, 17:00 ESTUpdated: Dec 5, 2025, 18:47 EST
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Early in the 1983-84 season, the Oilers acquired a player who helped them win four Stanley Cups.
This edition of Flashback Friday looks at the Kevin McClelland trade, which celebrates its 42nd anniversary on Friday. On Dec. 5, 1983, the Oilers sent Tom Roulston to the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for a 1984 sixth-round pick and Kevin McClelland. The Oshawa, Ontario native had played 72 games with the Penguins from 1981-82 until 1983-84, scoring eight goals and 20 points.
After the trade, the right winger scored eight goals and 28 points in 52 games while accumulating 127 penalty minutes. In the 1984 postseason, McLelland scored four goals and 10 points in 18 games, the best run of his career. One of those goals came in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals against the New York Islanders, helping the Oilers win that one 1-0. They’d end up winning the Cup that season.
Edmonton Journal Newspaper Clipping From December 7, 1983.
In his first full season with the Oilers, he scored eight goals and 23 points in 62 games, along with a goal and four points in 18 playoff games as the Oilers went back-to-back. His career-best year in terms of points came in 1985-86, scoring 11 goals and 36 points, with 266 penalty minutes. McClelland only played 10 playoff games, as the Oilers lost in seven games to the Calgary Flames.
They were back on top of the hockey world in 1987, with McClelland scoring 12 goals and 25 points in 72 games, along with two goals and five points in 21 playoff games. For the second time in franchise history, the Oilers went back-to-back, sweeping the Boston Bruins in four games. McClelland scored 10 goals and 16 points in 74 games, with two goals and five points in 19 playoff games.
Wayne Gretzky was traded to the Los Angeles Kings a few months after their Stanley Cup victory, and those Kings overcame a 3-1 series deficit to win in Game 7. In the 1988-89 regular season, McClelland scored six goals and 20 points in 79 games. That season turned out to be his final full season with the Oilers.
After just ten games in 1989-90, the Oilers sent McClelland, Jimmy Carson and a 1991 fifth-round pick to the Detroit Red Wings in exchange for Adam Graves, Petr Klima, Joe Murphy, and Jeff Sharples.
The 1989-90 season was McClelland’s final as regular NHL’er, scoring four goals and nine points in 61 games with the Red Wings. He’d play another 27 National Hockey League games over the next three seasons for the Wings, Toronto Maple Leafs, and Winnipeg Jets, before calling it a career after the 1994-95 season.
As you likely know, the Oilers went on to win the 1990 Stanley Cup, defeating the Winnipeg Jets (the team they play on Sunday) in seven games, then sweeping the Kings in the second round. 
All in all, it was a pretty good trade for the Oilers, even if McClelland wasn’t a superstar by any means.
Ryley Delaney is a Nation Network writer for Oilersnation, FlamesNation, and Blue Jays Nation. Follow her on Twitter @Ryley__Delaney.

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