May 19, 1984, 40 years ago: The Edmonton Oilers win their 1st Stanley Cup. They beat the New York Islanders, 5-2 at the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton, in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Wayne Gretzky, the biggest star in the game at the time, already with several scoring records under his belt, scores 2 goals.
The Islanders, winners of the last 4 Stanley Cups, had swept the Oilers in 4 straight the season before. This time, in their "Drive for Five," an attempt to match the 1956-60 Montreal Canadiens for the most consecutive Cups, they won Game 2, 6-1. But the Oilers won the other games: 1-0, 7-2, 7-2 and 5-2.
It was the 1st Cup won by a team west of Chicago since the 1925 Victoria Cougars. Centers Gretzky and Mark Messier, right wings Jari Kurri and Glenn Anderson, defensemen Paul Coffey and Kevin Lowe, goaltender Grant Fuhr, and head coach and general manager Glen Sather would all be elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Defenseman Lee Fogolin Jr., who was also with the Oilers to win the Cup the next year, was the son of Lee Fogolin Sr., a defenseman who was a member of the Detroit Red Wings when they won the Cup in 1950.
This began a string of 5 Cups in a span of 7 years for the Oilers. They won the Cup again in 1985, beating the Philadelphia Flyers; missed the Finals in 1986; and beat the Flyers in the Finals again in 1987. Coffey was traded, but they won again in 1988, beating the Boston Bruins in the Finals. Gretzky engineered his trade to the Los Angeles Kings, and Andy Moog replaced Fuhr as the starting goalie. They missed the Finals in 1989, and won the Cup again in 1990, again over the Bruins, with Sather still the general manager, but he had hired John Muckler to succeed him as head coach.
It was a great time for hockey in Alberta: In 1986 and 1989, the years in that stretch that the Oilers did not win the NHL Clarence Campbell Conference (forerunner of the Western Conference), the Conference was won by the Calgary Flames, their Provincial arch-rivals. The Flames lost the Finals to the Montreal Canadiens in 1986, then beat the Canadiens in 1989.
The Oilers would not reach the Finals again until 2006, losing to the Carolina Hurricanes. Through the 2021-22 season, they have not won the Cup since 1990. The Islanders have not reached the Finals since, though they have reached the Conference Finals twice.
There hasn't been that great of a dynasty in the NHL since, although the 1995-09 Red Wings and the 2010's Blackhawks came close (Chicago did win three cups in six years).
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