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Top 100 Oilers: No. 15 — Charlie Huddy

By Michael Menzies

Sep 6, 2026, 13:00 EDTUpdated: Sep 5, 2026, 16:12 EDT

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Oilersnation is reviving the Top 100 Edmonton Oilers of All Time list, a project originally created by the late Robin Brownlee in 2015. Charlie Huddy comes in at No. 15 on our updated 2025 list. He was ranked No. 13 on Brownlee’s original list.

To win a championship, it doesn’t just require superstars, but the Edmonton Oilers had those. You need glue guys, players happy in their roles, and happy to have the focus on others. They quietly ply their trade and get the job done, night in and night out.

Rename Elmer’s and call it Huddy’s: Charlie Huddy may have been the greatest glue guy the Oilers ever had. The undrafted Oshawa defenceman sure made a terrific career out of being a solid, quiet, reliable defender for Edmonton, one of the seven Oilers, and three defencemen to win all five Stanley Cups.

But to label Huddy as “just” a glue guy may undersell how good he was as a player, especially as a key contributor in the early Stanley Cups.

He was the safety valve that allowed Paul Coffey to fly all over the ice and press, but not bereft of offensive skill, either. There was loads of attention to go around, and the rugged, bearded blue liner didn’t mind if that the spotlight rarely landed on him.

“I’m not big on exposure,” he told the Edmonton Journal in a story headlined ‘A star hidden in Huddy’ in March 1983. “If I never made an all-star team it wouldn’t bother me…I’d rather go unnoticed.”

Oilers fans noticed, especially when he was carrying Lord Stanley’s Cup every May.

Notable

Huddy played for his hometown Oshawa Generals in junior, but didn’t pop off enough for a team to use a draft choice on him.

Sather and Oilers chief scout Barry Fraser, who had picked Kevin Lowe, Mark Messier, and Glenn Anderson in the 1979 draft, signed him and it’s one of the best signings in franchise history.

After a stint in the CHL to play for the Houston Apollos in 1979-80, he joined Edmonton the following year. His tenure with the Oilers came to an end in 1991 when he was left exposed in the expansion draft and was picked by the Minnesota North Stars.

The Los Angeles Kings were able to snag him that offseason in a trade, and Huddy’s was part of the Oilers exodus streams who’d either gone to LA, New York, or St. Louis (or both). He played with his buddy Gretzky and former d-partner Paul Coffey on a run to the 1993 Stanley Cup Final and in St. Louis in 1995-96 after a stop in Buffalo (coincidentally traded for Fuhr in a multi-player deal in 1995).

Huddy muscled his way to 1017 NHL games, scoring 99 goals and 453 points, and suited up in 183 playoff games, tied for 39th most in league history. He used his knowledge to be an assistant coach under Craig MacTavish for eight seasons, finally retired from coaching in 2021-22 after spending even more time on Winnipeg’s bench.

Mar. 4, 1983 edition of the Edmonton Journal.

The Story

The biggest individual accolade for Huddy was the Emery Edge Award for the league’s best plus-minus in 1982-83, with a wicked plus-62. It was a brand new honour at the time, brandishing this fancy stat into the mainstream.

It was a smashing season in Huddy’s second full year, with a career year of 20 goals and 57 points.

But to casual fans outside the market, he was the unknown soldier of the Oilers’ championship era and the 694 times he wore the oil drop. His contributions were enshrined in the Oilers Hall of Fame in 2023.

“Charlie was underrated, but incredibly valuable,” said partner Paul Coffey at the time. “I played with him for the better part of my seven years with the Oilers, and he covered up for a lot of my mistakes. He’s a great human being. A great guy to be around.”

“A great skater, a good puck handler. The pass was always on your stick. His shot was always on the net. He was just a super consistent player.”

Huddy made a career of being in the right place at the right time and has a handful of Stanley Cup rings to show for it. The Oilers of today could use a Huddy in the lineup today.

April 20, 1983 edition of the Edmonton Journal.

What Brownlee said

“When I think of Coffey and Huddy – hold on, I’m going really old school here – I think of Bobby Orr and Dallas Smith. Who the hell was Dallas Smith? Well, like Huddy, he was the quiet guy who stayed home while Orr revolutionized the way the game was played from the back end with the Boston Bruins. Like Huddy, he was the perfect complement to his more fleet-footed, famous and sensational partner. Call it understated excellence.
“Huddy wasn’t a physical player. He defended with his brain and played a positional game. He could move the puck. He worked the point on the power play with Coffey. He was smart enough to play off what Coffey did, to be in the right spots, to hang back when it was needed – which was often – and jump up when warranted. It can be difficult to play with a player as talented as Coffey, which seems odd but is something we’ve seen many times, and Huddy was a master at it.”