The Edmonton Oilers have had some fantastic wingers in their storied history — Ones with all kinds of speed and skill and others with crash and bang. Who do you think are the best? 
This is a four-part series looking at the four best players in team history from the four positions: Wingers, Centres, Defencemen, and Goaltenders. In this article, we’ll look at the Mount Rushmore of Oilers Wingers and some honourable mentions who deserve recognition.
Let’s dig in!

Glenn Anderson

Glenn Anderson was one of the original Edmonton Oilers, as he was the third player the team ever picked in the National Hockey League Draft at 69th overall in 1979. As you can imagine, the two players picked before him, Kevin Lowe and Mark Messier, will be appearing later in this series, as well. 
From the 1980-81 season until the end of the 1990-91 season, Anderson scored 417 goals and 906 points in 845 games with the Oilers. In total, Anderson had 20 hat tricks for the Oilers and 21 in his career, tied for the 13th most in league history. 
Anderson was also a big-time postseason performer, scoring 81 goals and 183 points in 164 postseason games for the Oilers. Of course, Anderson was on the roster for all five Stanley Cups the Oilers won.
One, if not his best moment as an Oiler, was in 1987. With just under two and a half minutes left in Game 7, Anderson scored the insurance goal that pushed the Oilers over the Philadelphia Flyers.
The Oilers traded Anderson, among others, to the Toronto Maple Leafs, where he played parts of three seasons. In 1993-94, he was traded to the New York Rangers, where he won his sixth Stanley Cup alongside a handful of other former Edmonton teammates. He bounced around from St. Louis to Vancouver and back to Edmonton for a short period of time before finishing his playing career in Europe.
Anderson finished in NHL career with 498 goals and 1,120 points in 1,129 regular-season games, along with 93 goals and 214 points in 225 playoff games.

Jari Kurri

Just like the 1979 draft, which saw the Oilers select three key players for their dynasty, the 1980 draft was also a banger. In the first round, they selected the legendary Paul Coffey, and in the fourth round, they found another future Hall of Famer, Jari Kurri.
The Finnish right-winger spent ten seasons with the Oilers, scoring 474 goals and 1043 points in 754 games. He became the scorer in a duo with Wayne Gretzky, the league’s all-time leading scorer by a massive margin. 
Kurri led postseason goal scoring on four separate occasions, scoring 14 goals in the 1984 and 1988 playoffs, 15 in the 1987 postseason, and 19 goals in the 1985 postseason. The latter is still tied for the most in a single postseason, matching Reggie Leach’s record in the 1976 postseason.
Anderson sealed Game 7 with the insurance goal mentioned above, but it was Kurri who scored the game-winning goal of the 1987 Final. In fact, Kurri also picked up goals in the Stanley Cup-clinching games of 1984 and 1985, as well.
Like Anderson and everyone on those dynasty teams, Kurri didn’t play his entire career with Edmonton, as he headed to Italy for a season in 1990-91 before joining Gretzky with the L.A. Kings. Kurri had stops with Jokerit Helsinki, the New York Rangers, Anaheim Mighty Ducks, and Colorado Avalanche before retiring. He finished his NHL career with 601 goals and 1,398 points over 1,251 regular-season games and 106 goals and 233 points in 200 playoff games. 

Ryan Smyth

Surely, I’m not the only one who thinks Ryan Smyth should’ve spent his entire career with the Edmonton Oilers?
The Oilers picked him sixth overall in the 1994 draft, and the left-winger became a staple in the team’s lineup throughout the late 90s and early 2000s. He scored 296 goals and 631 points over 971 games with Edmonton, though he spent time with three other teams in the middle. 
Smyth made a big part of his legacy during his seven playoff appearances with the Oilers, in which he scored 22 goals and 43 points over 68 games. Of course, the run that immediately stands out is when the Oilers went to Game 7 of the 2006 Stanley Cup Final as an eighth-seed. Smyth scored seven goals and 16 points during that run and played through some awful injuries. 
That was Smyth’s final full year as an Oiler in tenure number one, as he was traded to the New York Islanders before the 2007 trade deadline amid a disastrous season. After the team, he played for the Islanders, Colorado Avalanche, and the Los Angeles Kings, scoring 90 goals and 211 points in 299 games.
The Oilers acquired Smyth from the Kings during the 2011 draft, moving Colin Fraser and a 2012 seventh-round pick. Smyth’s first season back saw him score 19 goals and 46 points in 82 games, but he was on the wrong side of 30 at that point. In his final 201 games with the Oilers, Smyth scored 31 goals and 82 points in 201 games.
That final season saw his most memorable moment, at least to me. One thing you have to know about Smyth is that the dude battled in front of the net. No one worked harder than him, and this led to him having 126 power-play goals with the Oilers heading into the final game of his career.
Smyth had a chance to overtake Glenn Anderson for the most power-play goals in franchise history, and the Oilers were given plenty of opportunities, as they had 12 minutes on the power play. Despite playing a game-high 23:46, basically never leaving the ice on the power play, Smyth was unable to take sole possession of the record.
But it was after the game that stood out. Donning the captaincy for the first time in his NHL career, Smyth was overcome with emotion when the final horn blared in the Oilers’ 5-2 victory. Even the Canucks decided to come back out for a ceremonial handshake with the Oilers legend.
The video below is a must-watch. Retire #94.

Zach Hyman

Of the skaters we’ll cover in this series, many of whom were drafted by the Oilers, Zach Hyman represents the team’s best addition ever made in free agency. 
Originally drafted by the Florida Panthers in the fifth round of the 2010 draft, Hyman ended up with his hometown Toronto Maple Leafs in 2015-16, scoring four goals and six points in 16 games. The best season of his career with the Leafs was in 2018-19, when he scored 21 goals and 41 points in 71 games, following that season with 21 goals and 37 points in 51 games.
During the summer of 2021, Hyman signed a seven-year deal worth $5.5 million annually with the Oilers. With his past knee injuries, there was talk of this contract not aging well, but three years in, he’s become one of the best wingers in team history.
He immediately set a career-high in 2021-22, scoring 27 goals and 54 points in 76 games. Hyman followed up that season with 36 goals and 83 points in 79 games, setting a new career-high in points that still stands.
Three years into his tenure, the best memory of Hyman that Oiler fans have is his entire 2023-24 season. The gritty winger scored a career-high 54 goals while putting up 77 points in 80 games. Moreover, Hyman’s 16 goals in the Oilers’ trip to the Stanley Cup Final were the most in a playoff run since Joe Sakic in 1996. Four more seasons of Hyman? Sign me up!

Honourable mentions

In this section, we’ll look at four skilled wingers that didn’t make the cut, but deserved to be mentioned.

Aleš Hemský

Aleš Hemský played parts of 11 seasons with the Oilers, scoring 142 goals and 477 points in 652 games. The skilled Czech winger had some of the best hands of any Oilers, and that was showcased in his best moment as an Oiler. 
In Game 6 of the opening round of the 2006 postseason, Hemský gained the line with his sweet hands, dropped the puck off, and found open ice beside the Detroit Red Wings netminder with just over a minute left in a tied game. The rest is history.
After the Oilers, Hemský played for the Ottawa Senators, Dallas Stars, and Montréal Canadiens. Too bad he couldn’t stay healthy.

Jordan Eberle

Jordan Eberle very nearly made this list, and probably would have if not for Hyman’s great 2023-24 season and playoffs. The Regina-native has provided not just Oiler fans, but Canadians everywhere with so many great moments. Remember his goal with less than six seconds left in the semifinals of the World Juniors? Remember the next season when he scored two goals against the United States with less than three minutes left? The right winger is as clutch as they come.
However, his best moment with the Oilers came in his first National Hockey League game, you know the goal. At the end of the penalty kill, Eberle received a great pass off the boards for a 2 on 1, elected to keep it and toe dragged around the defender, beating Miikka Kiprusoff while falling on the backhand.
Eberle was traded prior to the 2017-18 season and spent four seasons with the New York Islanders, before the Seattle Kraken picked him up in the expansion draft. His 34 goals and 76 points in 78 games in 2011-12 still stand as career-highs. 

Taylor Hall

This is the decade of darkness trio section (sorry Nail Yakupov). Taylor Hall was the first of four first-overall picks, as the Oilers selected him in the 2010 draft.
Hall’s tenure with the Oilers was a good one, as he scored 132 goals and 328 points in 381 games, before he was traded to the New Jersey Devils in a one-for-one trade. In 2017-18, he won the Hart Memorial trophy, before bouncing around the league, playing for the Arizona Coyotes, Buffalo Sabres, Boston Bruins, and Chicago Blackhawks.
In a game against the Vancouver Canucks on Mar. 30, 2013, Hall scored the fastest hat trick to start a game in Oilers’ franchise history, potting three goals in seven minutes and 53 seconds. It’s been a weird career for Hall, who has hit 30 goals just once in his career and 70 points just twice.

Esa Tikkanen

Another difficult face to leave off of this Mount Rushmore was Esa Tikkanen, the legendary pest who was a part of four Stanley Cup teams with the Oilers. Selected by the Oilers in the fourth round of the 1983 draft, the Finnish winger developed into a very good scorer in the NHL and became a fan favourite because of his agitating play and sense of humour.
Tikkanen won a Stanley Cup in 1994 with the Rangers and bounced around the league for a few more years before finishing his career in Europe. Over 522 games with the Oilers, he scored 178 goals and 436 points. He scored 244 goals and 630 points in 877 NHL games all told.
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