Edmonton Oilers Trivia
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50 free Edmonton Oilers trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
The Edmonton Oilers started as a WHA club that briefly called itself the Alberta Oilers, bought a teenage Wayne Gretzky for cash from a folding Indianapolis team, and turned into the most explosive dynasty the NHL has seen. This Oilers trivia quiz covers the whole run: Wild Bill Hunter, Glen Sather, the 21-year personal-services contract that got Gretzky into the NHL, 92 goals and 212 points, five Cups in seven years, the Steve Smith own goal and the vindication a year later, the Boston Garden blackout, the trade that shook Canada and Bill Ranford's Cup in 1990. It then follows the lean years and the near-move to Houston, Curtis Joseph's upsets, the first outdoor game, the 2006 run from eighth seed to Game 7, the decade of first-overall picks, Connor McDavid becoming the youngest captain ever, the move to Rogers Place, the Battle of Alberta rematch and back-to-back Finals against Florida. Easy questions sit alongside genuinely hard ones about the WHA and the McFarlane third jersey. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedic and reference sources before publishing, and each question carries a citation. For more, try our NHL trivia and hockey trivia pages.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Under which name did the Oilers play their first WHA season in 1972-73?
Alberta Oilers
Alberta Oilers. The idea was to split home games between Edmonton and Calgary, but it fell through: every home game stayed in Edmonton, and the city's name returned a year later.
Q 02Which Oilers co-founder also helped found the Western Hockey League and owned the junior Oil Kings?
Wild Bill Hunter
Wild Bill Hunter. The two Americans who dreamed up the WHA had come from pro basketball; they brought him in, and he set about lining up owners for the new league's first franchises.
Q 03Which WHA club entered the NHL in 1979 alongside the Oilers, Winnipeg Jets and Quebec Nordiques?
New England Whalers
New England Whalers. Renamed for Hartford on joining the NHL, they later moved south to become the Carolina Hurricanes, the team that beat Edmonton in the 2006 Stanley Cup Final.
Q 04Which journeyman forward joined the Oilers in 1976, became player-coach and ran the team for over two decades?
Glen Sather
Glen Sather. A hard-working grinder who passed through six NHL teams without starring, he built the Oilers dynasty that won five Stanley Cups between 1984 and 1990, coaching the first four.
Q 05From which struggling WHA club did Peter Pocklington buy 17-year-old Wayne Gretzky in 1978?
Indianapolis Racers
Indianapolis Racers. Gretzky played only eight games for them before owner Nelson Skalbania, short of money, sold the teenager's contract to Edmonton.
Q 06Which Oiler scored the last goal in WHA history in the 1979 Avco Cup final?
Dave Semenko
Dave Semenko. Better known for his fists as Wayne Gretzky's on-ice bodyguard, he went three exhibition rounds with Muhammad Ali in Edmonton in 1983, a bout judged a draw.
Q 07How did Pocklington keep Gretzky out of the 1979 NHL entry draft pool?
A 21-year personal-services contract
A 21-year personal-services contract. Signed at centre ice on Gretzky's 18th birthday, it made him Pocklington's own employee rather than the team's, and the NHL let Edmonton keep him.
Q 08Whose single-season record of 76 goals did Wayne Gretzky shatter with 92 in 1981-82?
Phil Esposito
Phil Esposito. Gretzky also reached 50 goals that season in just 39 games, when the old mark was 50 in 50, getting there with five in one night against Philadelphia.
Q 09Which team erased the Oilers' 5-0 lead in the 1982 'Miracle on Manchester'?
Los Angeles Kings
Los Angeles Kings. Down 5-0 after two periods, they tied the game with five seconds left and won 6-5 in overtime; the name comes from Manchester Boulevard, where their arena stood.
Q 10Which team swept the Oilers in the 1983 Final before Edmonton beat them for the 1984 Cup?
New York Islanders
New York Islanders. Walking past the winners' dressing room after the sweep, the young Oilers saw veterans covered in ice packs and decided they had not hurt enough to win.
Q 11Which Oiler's 54 goals ranked second on the team in 1983-84?
Glenn Anderson
Glenn Anderson. Drafted by Edmonton in 1979, he chose to play for Canada at the 1980 Olympics before joining the Oilers, then helped them score a record 446 goals in 1983-84.
Q 12Which Oilers defenceman piled up 37 points in the 1985 playoffs?
Paul Coffey
Paul Coffey. He had 12 goals and 25 assists that spring, more points than every forward in the playoffs except Wayne Gretzky, who took the playoff MVP award with 47.
Q 13Which Oilers rookie scored on his own net on his birthday to decide Game 7 against Calgary in 1986?
Steve Smith
Steve Smith. His clearing pass banked in off his own goalie's skate; a year later, when Edmonton won the Cup back, Wayne Gretzky handed it to him first.
Q 21Which Oilers star spent the 1990-91 season with Devils Milano in Italy?
Jari Kurri
Jari Kurri. A free agent after ten seasons in Edmonton, he scored 75 points in 30 games for the Milan club, then came back to the NHL to rejoin Wayne Gretzky in Los Angeles.
Q 22Which NBA owner nearly bought the Oilers in 1998 to move them to Houston?
Leslie Alexander
Leslie Alexander. The Houston Rockets owner made a formal offer, but local buyers were given a deadline to keep the team for US$70 million, and a group of Edmonton business people raised it in time.
Q 23Whose overtime goal in Game 7 completed the Oilers' 1997 upset of the Dallas Stars?
Todd Marchant
Q 14Which Flyers rookie goalie won the 1987 Conn Smythe despite losing Game 7 to Edmonton?
Ron Hextall
Ron Hextall. He dragged Philadelphia back from 3-1 down to force that seventh game, and later that year became the first NHL goalie to score by shooting the puck into the net.
Q 15Which 1987 documentary went behind the scenes with the Oilers on the way to their third Stanley Cup?
The Boys on the Bus
The Boys on the Bus. Director Bob McKeown started filming in 1985-86, saw the Oilers knocked out by Calgary, and came back for another season to get his Stanley Cup ending.
Q 16Why was Game 4 of the Oilers' 1988 Stanley Cup Final in Boston abandoned?
A power outage hit the arena
A power outage hit the arena. Boston Garden went dark with the score 3-3 in the second period, so the game was scrapped and Edmonton finished its sweep at home two nights later.
Q 17Which Stanley Cup tradition did Wayne Gretzky start after the Oilers' 1988 win?
The team photo on the ice
The team photo on the ice. Gretzky waved players, coaches and staff to centre ice for an unplanned picture with the Cup in what proved his last game as an Oiler, and champions have posed that way since.
Q 18Which young centre came to Edmonton in the 1988 Gretzky trade, scored 49 goals, then asked to leave?
Jimmy Carson
Jimmy Carson. Edmonton also got Martin Gelinas, three first-round picks and US$15 million, but Carson never settled and was traded to Detroit four games into his second season.
Q 19Which Oilers enforcer went to Los Angeles with Wayne Gretzky in the 1988 trade?
Marty McSorley
Marty McSorley. Five years later the two reached the Stanley Cup Final together, where his illegal stick drew a late penalty that let Montreal tie Game 2 and turn the series.
Q 20Which Oiler scored in the third overtime of Game 1 of the 1990 Final, having been benched for much of the night?
Petr Klima
Petr Klima. Benched for long stretches, he came on to end the longest game a Stanley Cup Final had seen, starting Edmonton toward its first Cup without Wayne Gretzky.
Todd Marchant. He blew past defenceman Grant Ledyard, broke in alone on Andy Moog and beat the Dallas goalie at 12:26 of overtime.
Q 24Which team beat the Oilers 4-3 in the 2003 Heritage Classic, the NHL's first regular-season outdoor game?
Montreal Canadiens
Montreal Canadiens. Their goalie Jose Theodore pulled a tuque over his mask against the bitter cold, and 57,167 fans sat through it in an outdoor football stadium.
Q 25As the West's eighth seed, the 2006 Oilers reached the conference final by knocking out which two teams?
Detroit and San Jose
Detroit and San Jose. The Red Wings had the NHL's best record and fell in six games; the Sharks won the first two games of their series before Edmonton took four straight.
Q 26Which goalie's Game 1 knee injury in the 2006 Final forced Edmonton to turn to Jussi Markkanen?
Dwayne Roloson
Dwayne Roloson. He had played every minute of those playoffs until a late collision wrecked his knee; replacement Ty Conklin then misplayed the puck behind his net and gifted Carolina the winner.
Q 27Whose short-handed overtime goal won Game 5 of the 2006 Final for the Oilers?
Fernando Pisani
Fernando Pisani. With Edmonton a man down and one loss from elimination, he picked off a pass and scored the first short-handed overtime goal in Stanley Cup Final history.
Q 28Which star Oilers defenceman asked for a trade just days after the 2006 Stanley Cup Final?
Chris Pronger
Chris Pronger. Sent to Anaheim that summer, he won the Stanley Cup with the Ducks the very next season, while Edmonton went ten years without a playoff game.
Q 29Which pharmacy magnate bought the Oilers from the Edmonton Investors Group in 2008?
Daryl Katz
Daryl Katz. His first bid of $145 million was turned down with the words 'the Oilers are not for sale'; a year later the Rexall drugstore owner got the team for about $200 million.
Q 30Which star refused a 2009 trade to Edmonton and ended up in San Jose instead?
Dany Heatley
Dany Heatley. He had asked Ottawa for a trade, yet refused to waive his no-move clause for Edmonton even after Oilers executives visited his home in Kelowna to talk him round.