Oilersnation is reviving the Top 100 Edmonton Oilers of All Time list, a project originally created by the late Robin Brownlee in 2015. Craig Muni comes in at No. 46 on our updated 2025 list. He was ranked No. 38 on Brownlee’s original list.

Craig Muni was drafted by the Toronto Maple Leafs in the second round of the 1980 draft, and toiled away in their minor league system for years. And just when he was ready to break into the nHL, they let him walk into free agency.

In came the Edmonton Oilers.

Notable

The Oilers swooped in and signed him as a free agent, but it wasn’t so easy.

As Lowetide alluded to in a Nation Profile years ago, Muni would be property of four NHL teams in October 1986. The Oilers signed him as a free agent on August 18th of that year, sold his rights to the Buffalo Sabres for cash on October 2nd, who did the same a day later, sending him to the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Then, the Penguins sent him back to Edmonton to complete a Sept. 11, 198 trade which saw the Oilers trade Gilles Meloche for Marty McSorley, Tim Hrynewich and future considerations, when future considerations actually meant something.

Muni would go on to win three Stanley Cups with the Oilers, becoming a fan favourite with his working-class attitude that endeared Edmontonians to many others. He munched minutes on the blue line, never shying away from big hits and a gritty style of play that also made him an efficient penalty killer.

He spent seven years in Alberta’s capital before the team traded him to the Chicago Blackhawks for Mike Hudson in March 1993.

The Story

Muni bounced around for the next five years before retiring after the 1997-98 season, spending the most time with the Buffalo Sabres, playing 160 games, but he would also lace up for Chicago, the Winnipeg Jets, Pittsburgh Penguins and Dallas Stars.

Muni’s presence on the Oilers blue line was best described below by Cam Cole, who wrote the following in the Edmonton Journal after the deal.

This is how I will remember Craig Muni:
“(His) sutures were leaking, blood oozed out of the four-stitch cut above his right eyebrow and the five-stitch gouge in his chin, both fresh ones, and rivulets of sweat poured into the cuts, mixing with the blood to produce pink streams running down his face and neck. He kept blinking blood away from his right eye…”
I will remember the ice pack on his shoulder that night — or rather — after Petr Klima’s goal had ended a five-hour, 40-minute, triple-overtime Game 1 of the 1990 Stanley Cup final at Boston Garden.

That hard-nosed style allowed Muni to play 819 games in the NHL, scoring 28 goals and 147 points — 24 and 111 of which came in Edmonton — and left an indelible mark on those he played with.

March 23rd, 1993

What Brownlee said

As a kid growing up in Toronto, Craig Muni’s dream was to one day play in the NHL for his hometown Maple Leafs. While he’d realize that questionable achievement, albeit modestly by playing in just 19 games over parts of four seasons in Hogtown after being drafted from the Kingston Canadians, Muni made his mark – it might be more accurate to say he left his mark – as a member of the Edmonton Oilers.
Muni’s calling card was the good-old fashioned hip-check, which was already something of a lost art by the time he arrived in Edmonton as a free agent for the 1986-87 season. Muni was a hellacious – those who suffered shredded knee ligaments along the way might say he was dirty — open-ice hitter who spent 493 games patrolling the blueline for the Oilers. He was Bryan Marchment before Mush came along.
An average skater with modest offensive skills, Muni was one of the NHL’s most feared hitters during his time with the Oilers, a tenure that saw him win three Stanley Cups. With all the dazzling skill the Oilers had up front with the likes of Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Jari Kurri and Glenn Anderson, it was Muni who took care of the dirty work on the back end, low-bridging opposing forwards as a penalty killer and third-pairing guy.
Muni was decidedly unspectacular in most facets of the game – until he sent somebody cart-wheeling with one of those hip-bone-connected-to-the-knee-bone hits. Muni was, without a doubt, a player who would be deemed a predatory hitter today. I can’t imagine how much he’d pay in fines and how many games he’d spend serving suspensions under the rules now.

The Last 10

Zach Laing is Oilersnation’s managing editor, and The Nation Network’s news director. He also makes up one-half of the Daily Faceoff DFS Hockey Report. He can be followed on X at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach.laing@bettercollective.com.

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