If there wasn't a salary cap, there might not even be an Oilers team for McDavid to play on. Back in the dark days, it's the thing that helped us and some other teams stay afloat until we found a money bags to buy the team.
Also 4on4. One strategy the early 80s Oilers used to have Semenko start roughhousing and the coincidental minors would open up a lot of ice for Gretzky, Kurri, Coffey, etc. The tactic was abused so much by the Oilers that the NHL introduced the "Gretzky rule" a few years later.
Yes yes, forgot about that, the NHL changed the rules because of it, like absolutely idiots
Different times and different ownership. If Katz was the owner in the 80's then most of the glory day Oilers would have played their entire careers in Edmonton. When the team was struggling financially there was no cap but we had a cheap, criminal owner in Pocklington that almost ruined the franchise.
Close. But it was not coincidental fighting majors that were the issue. That rule has been as it is now the whole time I have watched hockey. The issue was coincidental minors. The Oilers with Kurri, Gretzky and Coffey were deadly 4 vs 4. As a way to combat this the league changed the rule in allowed substitutions for the 85-86 season.
I started a poll before McDavid's first season asking if people could choose one of 1) the Oilers winning the cup in 2006 but no McDavid with a continuation of the decade of darkness or 2) winning the lottery for McDavid which would it be? The results were quite interesting. Not surprisingly most picked 1). I picked 2) as did a few older guys who had seen cups before. For me because of things in my life I just did not have as much attachment to that 2005-2006 team as I had to others in the past or over the last decade or so. But I had seen McDavid live as a 16 year old and he was just spectacular. Like no player that age I had ever seen before. I had a sense that aside from Gretzky he could well end up being the second best Oiler of all time.
No rational person would ever blame him, and 90% of the fault would lie at Hollands feet. It is completely batshit crazy that Katz hasn’t fired holland yet
I think we win another 3 to 5 more Cups if the team stayed together.
I hated the Canucks so much as a kid I had no choice but to cheer for the Edmonton Rangers.
Just need a starting goalie, 2 top 4 Dmen and 2 top 6 RW's and we're all set.......
Except the Stars beat us in 5 games, not 7. Outshot us pretty badly as well. They totally deserved to win the series. Modano was a beast.
