NHL—Changing The Way The Game Is Played

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From the 1981-82 season though to the 1985-86 campaign, the run-and-gun Oilers produced the five most prolific scoring seasons by any team in NHL history. The high point came in 1983-84, when the team scored an astonishing 446 goals.  In comparison, the Oilers scored 426 in 1985-86, 424 in 1982-83, 417 in 1981-82 and 401 in 1984-85, all of which were 80-game seasons). By comparison, in 2003, the "free-flowing" Detroit Red Wings led the NHL with just 269 goals over the course of an 82-game schedule.

"The Oilers changed the way the game was played around the league," says former 50-goal man Craig Simpson. "Scoring 400 goals, playing high-tempo hockey… The practices were as hard as any game I played in Pittsburgh."

With snipers like Gretzky and Kurri, a host of additional offensive talents, and a revolutionary defenceman like Paul Coffey-who once scored eight points in a game and a record 48 goals in a season–the Oilers tried to turn every game they played into a shootout.

Edmonton’s breakneck style was largely responsible for the wide-open NHL of the 1980s. While only a few star players now reach the 100-point level each season  (in 2001-02 Calgary’s Jarome Iginla led the league with 96 points), the league’s heyday was a time when every one got in the fun. The Oilers had dethroned the powerful New York Islanders as the best team in hockey and the pace they played with made it even more inviting to watch. By the start of the 1990s, players like Brett Hull of St. Louis (86 goals in 1990-91, second only to Gretzky’s record 92 in 1981-82 and the Great One’s 87 in 1983-84), Buffalo’s Alexander Mogilny and Winnipeg rookie Teemu Selanne (76 goals each in 1993-94) were also lighting up those poor NHL goalies.

Especially in the West, where the back and forth mentality still exists to a degree today.

"That’s the Edmonton Oilers’ legacy," former Los Angeles Kings coach Barry Melrose once explained. "That was in the 1980s, and yet all the Western teams are built like that. They are tough, aggressive and they can play physical, but mostly they can all skate."

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