Once an Oiler, always an Oiler. Often times, Oil Country has a particular affinity for former players and we like to keep tabs on who is where and how they’re doing—especially for the fan favourites. So as we head into the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs, here is a rundown of former Edmonton Oilers players who are still in the hunt playing around the league.
Boston Bruins
Pat Maroon
People tend to say anyone can play and play well on Connor McDavid’s wing, but very few have actually been good in that role. Pat Maroon was one of the first to do so.
Maroon was a sixth-round draft pick of the Flyers back in 2007 but didn’t make the NHL until 2011–12 with the Anaheim Ducks. At the 2016 trade deadline, he was dealt to the Oilers and quickly made a role for himself, with 14 points in 16 games.
In the 2016–17 season, Maroon demolished his previous career highs in goals (with 27) and set a new high in points as well, with 42. But, he was not destined to be McDavid’s winger for long as he was traded to the New Jersey Devils in the 2017–18 season.
Most memorable for Maroon in the years since is his three consecutive Stanley Cup winning seasons, lifting the Cup with St. Louis in 2019 and Tampa Bay in 2020 and 2021. He was the first player since Corey Stillman in 2006 to win back-to-back Cups with different teams and the first to win three consecutive Cups since various members of the New York Islanders did it between 1980 and 1983.
Maroon was dealt to the Bruins at this trade deadline while recovering from injury.
Colorado Avalanche
Andrew Cogliano
One of the members of the original group highly hyped young players that was supposed to be the future core of the team, Andrew Cogliano, hasn’t played for the Oilers in well over a decade at this point, but he remains a player that is remembered fondly by the fans.
Since being traded to the Anaheim Ducks before the 2011–12 season, Cogliano has become a fixture depth player on numerous teams in his career. He has been a regular 20-30 point player and one of the most reliable and durable players in the league.
Cogliano has been with the Avalanche for parts of three seasons at this point, and was a member of the 2022 Stanley Cup winning team.
Caleb Jones
Originally drafted 117th overall by the Oilers back in 2015, Caleb Jones has found himself with the Avalanche this season looking to play a role in Colorado’s Cup run.
After turning fully professional for the 2017–18 season, Jones spent parts of three seasons with the AHL’s Bakersfield Condors while developing. He made his NHL debut in 2018–19 and then spent parts of the next three seasons with the Oilers before being traded to the Chicago Blackhawks in the Duncan Keith trade.
Last offseason, Jones signed with the Carolina Hurricanes, but he was traded to the Avalanche before the season started. He split the season between the Avs and the AHL’s Colorado Eagles, but has found himself in the starting lineup lately.
Brad Hunt
Although his tenure with the Oilers was not the most memorable, Brad Hunt still spent a few of the more difficult seasons with Edmonton as one of many defenders the team cycled through in those years.
Hunt joined the Oilers in 2013–14 and split three seasons between the Oilers and their AHL affiliates. He only ended up playing 21 games over those seasons in the NHL.
Since then, he’s been somewhat of a journeyman player around the league, playing games with the St. Louis Blues, Nashville Predators, Vegas Golden Knights, Minnesota Wild (where he spent the most time, hitting 100 games with the team), Vancouver Canucks, and now the Avalanche.
Although he didn’t play with the Avalanche this season, spending the year in the AHL, he was recalled for some depth in the playoff run.
Florida Panthers
Dmitry Kulikov
Dmitry Kulikov was a very short tenured member of the Oilers, as he was a trade deadline acquisition himself for the disappointing 2021 NHL Playoffs which saw the Oilers swept by the Winnipeg Jets in the first round. In 13 games with the Oilers, he had two assists.
Aside from that short stint, Kulikov was (and is) a longtime Florida Panther, spending the first seven seasons of his career with the Panthers. He then moved to the Buffalo Sabres, the Jets, and the New Jersey Devils before joining Edmonton.
After the Oilers, Kulikov has moved around a lot, playing with the Minnesota Wild, Anaheim Ducks, and Pittsburgh Penguins before returning to Florida for this season.
Anthony Stolarz
Another Panther with a very short stint in Edmonton is goaltender Anthony Stolarz. Back in the 2018–19 season, he served as the team’s third string goalie, playing in six games with a less than memorable stat line of an .897 SV% and 3.77 GAA.
After that season, he remained with the Ducks organization for four seasons until he joined the Florida Panthers to serve as Sergei Bobrovsky‘s backup. And with his performance over the past few seasons, it has to the belief that Stolarz may have been the one that got away.
Los Angeles Kings
Cam Talbot
One of the final favours Glen Sather did for the Oilers was trading Cam Talbot to Edmonton early in the Connor McDavid era. And he ended up being one of the best goalies the team had in those years.
Talbot spent a couple of his best seasons with the Oilers in 2015–16 and 2016–17, including the team’s first playoff appearance in over a decade in the 2017 playoffs.
But through some more difficult seasons, Talbot was unable to remain in Edmonton and was traded after four seasons with the team. He has since played with the Philadelphia Flyers, Calgary Flames, Wild, Ottawa Senators, and now finds himself with the Los Angeles Kings.
The 2023–24 season has been a resurgence for him, as it has been his best season as a team’s primary goaltender since that 2016–17 campaign with the Oilers.
Nashville Predators
Tyson Barrie
After years of struggling to find a high end powerplay quarterback, the Oilers brought in Tyson Barrie. Although his game was one-dimensional, he was very good on the blueline with the man advantage. Barrie spent most of three seasons with the Oilers from 2020–21 until being traded away at the deadline in the 2022–23 season as a part of the Mattias Ekholm trade with the Nashville Predators. Barrie had a career record pace in his first season with the Oilers, recording 48 points in 56 games.
Since joining Nashville, Barrie has fallen out of a regular lineup spot, becoming a healthy scratch for the first time in his career during the season. In the 2023–24 season, he played in just 41 games, scoring one goal and 15 points.
New York Rangers
Erik Gustafsson
Erik Gustafsson never actually played for the Oilers, but he was a fourth-round draft pick of theirs back in 2012. He spent most of his early career in the Chicago Blackhawks organization, the highlight of which was scoring 60 points in 79 games in the 2018–19 season.
Since leaving Chicago for the first time in the 2019–20 season, he has played somewhere different each year. Gustafsson has gone from Chicago to the Flames to the Philadelphia Flyers to the Montreal Canadiens, back to the Blackhawks, then to the Washington Capitals, the Toronto Maple Leafs, and finally the New York Rangers, where he finds himself today.
Washington Capitals
Ethan Bear
Although Ethan Bear is not playing in the playoffs as he is currently participating in the NHLPA Players Assistance Program, he is still a part of the Washington Capitals organization that managed to find a way into the playoffs.
Bear was a fifth-round draft pick back in 2015 began his career with the Oilers back in 2017–18. With the Oilers organization, he spent one season split between the NHL and AHL, one season in the AHL, and then became an NHL regular in 2019–20. After two seasons of that, in which Bear played 114 games, recording 29 points, he was traded to the Hurricanes.
After spending last season with the Vancouver Canucks, Bear signed mid-season in 2023–24 with the Washington Capitals. He played 24 games before entering the Players Assistance Program.
Winnipeg Jets
Laurent Brossoit
At one time, Laurent Brossoit was pegged to be the Oilers’ future goalie. That never really panned out and he eventually got passed over and left unsigned. Since then, he has found stability as the backup goalie for the Winnipeg Jets, on multiple occasions.
Brossoit spent three seasons in Winnipeg on his first stint, followed by two seasons with the Vegas Golden Knights. This past offseason, Brossoit came back to the Jets, where he has had the best season of his career with a 2.00 GAA and a .927 save percentage in 23 games.
Which former Oiler do you want to see lift the Cup? Drop a comment down below!
Photo by Curtis Comeau/Icon Sportswire
