Edmonton Oilers Legacy

Ron Low learned the meaning of despair early in his National Hockey League (NHL) playing days. In the mid 1970s, the likable goalie from Foxwarren, Manitoba, had the misfortune of playing for the expansion Washington Capitals and losses piled up quicker than anyone would care to count. "Low-Tide" bounced around the NHL and the minors for another decade, including a few seasons with the Edmonton Oilers, years that proved to be more rewarding than his inauspicious start in the pros.

"My best NHL memory was probably when I got traded to Edmonton and then we had a great run after that, where we won something like 11 out of 13 games and made the playoffs," Low recalls. "That was really the highlight of my NHL career, playing with Gretzky, Mess and Andy, of course there was Paul Coffey, Jari Kurri and Grant Fuhr – and I can’t forget Kevin Lowe, either. I said that when I first saw this team, that they would win a Stanley Cup within five years. You know what? I was dead on."

Above all, the seasons with Edmonton opened a door to coaching. Low played his last hockey game in the 1985-86 season for the Nova Scotia Oilers of the American Hockey League and two years later, would become the man calling the shots from behind the bench for that very same team. After two years of leading Edmonton’s minor league affiliate, Low was hired as an assistant coach with the big club. His return to the NHL was fruitful – that 1989-90 season, the Oilers won their fifth Stanley Cup in the franchise’s short history.

Low would stay on as an assistant for five more seasons before getting his big break near the end of the shortened 1994-95 season. He replaced George Burnett with 13 games to go and ushered a new era in Oiler history. Edmonton's record was a disappointing 30-44-8 in Low’s first full season in charge, and the team missed the playoffs for the fourth consecutive year.

His next campaign was a different story. Low guided a team full of kids with no real concrete expectations and groomed them into winners. Inexperienced players like Doug Weight, Ryan Smyth, Jason Arnott and Mike Grier were catalysts in a monumental first-round playoff upset of the Dallas Stars. When a young Todd Marchant buried a puck behind Dallas’s Andy Moog in overtime of the seventh game, Low and his boys had done the unimaginable. The Oilers followed that up with another incredible performance the following post-season, disposing of the powerful Colorado Avalanche in another seven-game thriller, even after going down three games to one.

This period of Oiler history does not even come close to the incredible success of the 1980s, but it remains a definitive point in the franchise’s existence. Edmonton was no longer a powerhouse, but a perennial underdog and the playoff victories were a return to glory after four years of unmatched heartache. Before Low took over, Northlands Coliseum was half-empty on most nights, but the upsets of Dallas and Colorado rekindled the deep emotions Edmonton had for its Oilers. With Low’s easy-going demeanour (though the coach was known to occasionally lose his temper behind the bench) and a lineup comprised of youthful, fast skaters, the Oilers were a run-and-gun team that looked to outlast their opponents. Low was their leader, and the players he had under his command were happy to give everything they had for him.

"Yup, I am a player’s coach, but that comes more from the players that I’ve got," Low said during his Oiler tenure. "It’s pretty easy to be a player’s coach when you have such a great group of guys like I have. In all the time I’ve coached this team, I can honestly say there hasn’t been more than one player that’s come through this dressing room who I didn’t like."

The 1998-99 season was Low’s final one with the Oilers. The Stars swept Edmonton in the first round of the playoffs and although Low was offered a contract for the following year, he turned down what he saw as an unreasonable offer. The journeyman goaltender agreed to become coach and general manager of the Houston Aeros in the old International Hockey League for one year before rejoining his old Oiler boss Glen Sather in New York. Low led the Rangers for two seasons and became an NHL scout when his stint in the Big Apple came to an end.