Oilersnation is reviving the Top 100 Edmonton Oilers of All Time list, a project originally created by the late Robin Brownlee in 2015. Curtis Joseph comes in at No. 33 on our updated 2025 list. He was ranked No. 30 on Brownlee’s original list.

Curtis Joseph has got that dog in him.

Cujo is renowned for his iconic mask, repping the ferocious canine from Stephen King’s horror novel Cujo, that gave him this infamous namesake.

In 1995, he was brought in as an up-and-coming elite franchise-level goaltender to save an Edmonton Oilers team that had missed the playoffs two years in a row.

Throughout his career, Cujo recorded the seventh most wins of any goaltender in NHL history at 454, and has somehow found himself outside of the Hall of Fame, 16 years removed from his retirement. When he hung up the skates in 2010, he officially gave up his chance at winning a Stanley Cup.

Notable

The score was 3-3 in Game 7 of the first round in the 1997 Stanley Cup Playoffs. After missing the playoffs for four consecutive seasons, the Oilers were facing the favoured Dallas Stars in sudden death overtime. Both teams’ seasons were on the line, and everyone was battling. Maybe no one as much as Curtis Joseph.

With eight minutes remaining in the overtime period, Stars forward Joe Nieuwendyk had a wide-open net to seal the series for his team. The puck had dribbled out to him right in front of the goaltender’s paint, he fought off pressure from Oilers defenceman Luke Richardson and forced the biscuit to the net.

In a flash, Joseph was flying across his crease. A desperation move hoping to just get enough to keep the puck out of his net. Somehow, his spectacular effort not only saved the shot, but he also completely absorbed the rebound as well, collecting the rubber disc in his grasp, and stopping the play that seemed sure to be the end of the Oilers season.

Then Todd Marchant scored the famous series-clinching overtime goal for the Edmonton Oilers in Game 7 of the 1997 Western Conference quarterfinals. At 12:26 of overtime, 26 seconds after Cujo’s miraculous stop, Marchant broke away and scored, leading the No. 7 seed Oilers to a 4-3 upset over the No. 2 seed Stars.

The next year, Joseph and the Oilers pulled off another massive upset in the first round of the playoffs. They were down 3-1 in the series to the Colorado Avalanche, facing what felt like certain elimination by the second-seeded Avalanche. Cujo wasn’t going to roll over and let it be easy for the Avs.

In the last three games of the series, Joseph allowed only one goal on 83 shots, and he posted back-to-back shutouts in games six and seven. The team’s playoff MVP played 12 games in the postseason, finishing it off with a 1.93 GAA and a 0.928 Sv%.

The Story

Joseph came into the league as an undrafted free agent when he signed with the St. Louis Blues in 1989. In his 280 games with the Blues, he secured 137 wins and posted a 3.04 GAA and .907 Sv%.

On July 28, 1995, the Oilers were awarded two first-round draft picks as compensation for declining to match an offer sheet the St. Louis Blues gave to Shayne Corson. Exactly one week later, Edmonton’s general manager Glen Sather traded these picks back to the St. Louis Blues in exchange for Joseph and Mike Grier.

Cujo was on the last year of his contract, and Edmonton Journal’s Mark Spector reported concern from Cujo’s agent regarding whether the Oilers would be willing to give the goaltender the deal he sought.

“It’s going to take a substantial amount of money to sign Curtis Joseph,” Donald Meehan told Spector at the time. “I’m surprised… I don’t know what Glen’s motive is… I’ve talked to five teams who’d like to sign him.”

Due to a contract dispute between the two parties, Joseph did not play for the first three months of the season. This was resolved after he signed for four-years at $6.9 million in early 1996, causing the team to trade Bill Ranford, who had been their guy for eight years and won them the Stanley Cup in 1990. Joseph’s Oilers debut was officially Jan. 13, 1996, five months after he was traded to the team. They won 5-4 in overtime.

Joseph played 177 games with the Oilers, winning 76 games and holding a 2.90 GAA and .902 Sv%. His time in Edmonton was highlighted by his playoff heroics, as discussed previously with the series-winning save on Joe Nieuwendyk in 1997. He made two playoff appearances with the Oilers, playing 24 games, securing 10 wins – five of which were shutouts – a 2.90 GAA, and 919 Sv%.

Then when he demanded too much money for the Oilers to afford in his 1998 free-agency deal, he moved his talents to an organization that was willing to give him the contract he was seeking. After signing a four-year, $24 million deal with the Toronto Maple Leafs, the top-tier goaltender had become one of the highest paid players in the league at the time.

With Toronto, Joseph played 249 games, logging 133 wins, a 2.43 GAA, and a .912 Sv% from 1998-2002 . Again, Cujo proved that he is an elite playoff performer as he posted an amazing 2.25 GAA and .919 Sv% in his 60 postseason appearances with the club, where he maintained a winning record of 32-28 while recording eight shutouts. The furthest the Leafs could make it during Joseph’s time with them was the Conference Final in 1999.

After the Richmond Hill native refused to sign a contract with the Maple Leafs, the organization was forced to trade away the elite goaltender rather than lose him for nothing in the upcoming free agency. He was traded to the Calgary Flames for a third-round pick on June 30, 2002, and then opted to sign with the Detroit Red Wings just two days later.

The Red Wings were coming off a perfect season that saw them winning the 2002 Stanley Cup. Now they were on a hunt to replace their Hall of Fame goaltender Dominik Hašek, after Hašek had announced his retirement three days after the Red Wings’ season ended.

Joseph’s time in Detroit was unsurprisingly successful, he played 92 games, boasting a 50-29-9 record, a 2.46 GAA, and a .911 Sv%. Upon Hašek’s return, the crease was crowded, and Joseph’s play declined. The broken relationship between the goaltender and the Red Wings’ management resulted in him being sent to the team’s American Hockey League affiliate.

After the 2004-05 NHL lockout, Joseph signed with the then-Phoenix Coyotes. From 2005 through 2010, Cujo played for three teams, playing 140 games and posting relatively mediocre personal stats. Throughout the end of his career, his record was 58-63-6, and he ultimately ended on a one-year, $1.5 million deal with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Newspapers.com/Edmonton Journal

An Aug. 5, 1995, lead in the Edmonton Journal describes the Oilers acquiring Curtis Joseph and Mike Grier.

What Brownlee said

The 1998 post-season was Cujo’s swan song as a member of the Oilers as he’d later sign as an unrestricted free agent with the Toronto Maple Leafs for the kind of money the Oilers simply weren’t able to pay – he got a four-year deal worth $24.375 million to tend the twine in Hogtown. He’d made $2.3 million in each of his previous seasons in Edmonton.
Some Oiler fans, weary of seeing the team operated on a shoestring budget as player after player was sent out in the name of the bottom line, soured a bit on Joseph. “He sold out.” That’s an understandable reaction on one hand, but it’s hardly accurate. That’s the business end of hockey. Joseph enjoyed his time in Edmonton. He was a tremendous citizen here and was involved in the community and with several charities, including Cujo’s Cloud Nine, a set-up that allowed sick kids to watch Oiler games from a luxury suite.
Joseph’s flair for the dramatic didn’t leave him when he left Edmonton, quite the contrary. In his first game back here with the Maple Leafs, Oct. 13, 1998, Joseph made 28 saves to beat the Oilers 3-2. In another trip back, he blanked the Oilers 2-0 with 33 saves. When he was named first star of the game, Oiler fans gave him an ovation – just as they had many times before when he wore Edmonton silks.

The Last 10

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