The Battle of Alberta Goes Wrong

Ask Oilers fans about the 1985-86 season, and they will shake their heads as they recall the most infamous goal in Oilers history.

Many fans will not remember how the 1985-86 Oilers won the President’s Trophy as the first-place team, nor how the Oilers scored 426 goals that season. They may forget that Paul Coffey scored 48 goals that year, setting a new standard in scoring by a defenceman, or how ten Oilers were selected to go the All-Star Game in Hartford. They might not even remember that Wayne Gretzky had his greatest season ever, setting NHL records for assists (163) and points in a season (215).

Instead, all the standards set that season became meaningless when a puck errantly crossed the line. With half a period left to go in Game 7 of the Battle of Alberta, score tied 2-2, rookie defenceman Steve Smith skated from behind his own goal and slid what was intended to be a cross-ice pass through the crease. The pass that caught Oilers goalie Grant Fuhr by surprise, bounded off the net minder’s skate and into the net. The flashing red goal light silenced the sold-out crowd at Northlands Coliseum, and tears sprang from Smith’s face as he skated to the bench. The goal, credited to Flames forward Perry Berezan, would go on to be the game and series winner. Somehow, on April 30, 1986, the Oilers eliminated themselves from the playoffs, and all the talk about the "Edmonton hockey dynasty" seemed premature.

As far as regular season performances go, the Oilers had their most dominating season of all in 1985-86; the 119 points the team earned thanks to a 56-17-7 record tied the club mark for the most in a season, and the club took the President’s Trophy. Coffey’s 48 goals and Gretzky’s 215-point season helped the team average well over five goals a game over the course of the regular season.

The Oilers had lost just three games in the 1985 Cup winning playoffs. The vast majority of fans doubted that this team would lose even that many on the way to a three-peat.

After a first round sweep of Vancouver that saw the Oilers outscore the Canucks by a composite 17-5 score, Edmonton met the Calgary Flames in the Smythe Division finals. The Flames, despite finishing 30 points behind the Oilers in the standings, presented a formidable challenge. In the 1984 playoffs, the Flames took the Oilers to seven stressful games before succumbing. By the end of the 1985-86 season, Calgary had beaten Edmonton only once, but that win had come right at the end of the regular season, and it was a convincing 9-3 romp. With that win, The Flames sent a message to the Oilers about the state of their rivalry.

That message got louder after Game 1 of the series, a game that saw the Flames romp by a 4-1 score. The Oilers came back and took Game 2 thanks to a Glenn Anderson overtime winner.  The series would go back and fourth as the Flames won Game 3, The Oilers Game 4, and the Flames again in Game 5. Faced with a do-or-die situation in Calgary, the Oilers came through with a convincing Game 6 win, leaving an all-or-nothing Game 7 at Northlands Coliseum.

The series that neither team showed a desire to win would come down to a freak game-winning goal that the Oilers put in their own net. After the series, coach and general manager Glen Sather came down hard on his team, deflecting criticism from Smith. He blamed a lack of a team defensive effort for costing the Oilers the series.

The Flames went on to the Stanley Cup final, where they were beaten by an underdog Montréal Canadiens team anchored by the goaltending of rookie Patrick Roy.  The Oilers, meanwhile, sat at home and watched the Canadiens hoist the Cup on their televisions. Despite a season that re-wrote the record book, 1985-86 had left Oilers fans with more questions than answers.

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