Flashback Friday: The Oilers’ seven trades with the Capitals

On Saturday evening, the Edmonton Oilers play the Washington Capitals for the second time in 2025-26.

The two teams don’t have a lot of overlapping history. Neither team has been a Stanley Cup contender at the same time, as the Capitals were good enough to make the playoffs during the 1980s, but only made it to the conference finals once, when they were swept by the Boston Bruins in 1989-90.

Alexander Ovechkin turned the Capitals’ fortunes around in the mid noughties and 2010s, but the Oilers were in their decade of darkness throughout this time, missing the playoffs from 2006-07 until 2016-17. The season after the Oilers ended their playoff drought, the Capitals won it all, but the Oilers missed the playoffs in both 2017-18 and 2018-19.

Even in terms of trades, the two teams have only linked up on seven trades in the 47 seasons they’ve both played in the National Hockey League. Only three of those trades have come in the 21st century, and the most recent one came just under 13 years ago in 2013. Yes, 2013 was 13 years ago.

In this edition of Flashback Friday, we’ll look at those seven trades between the Oilers and the Capitals.

Trades in the 1980s

The Oilers and Capitals made three trades in the 1980s. The first trade between the two teams occurred on March 9th, 1982, as the Oilers sent Doug Hicks to the Capitals for Todd Bidner. Starting with the Oilers’ return, Bidner never played for the Oilers, dressing for just 12 NHL games, all with the Capitals in 1981-82. 

After six seasons playing professionally in North America, Bidney went overseas and played for a decade and a half in the United Kingdom. Here’s a fun fact about Bidner. He was born in the Southeastern Ontario town of Petrolia, which is where the first oil boom originated.

Hicks, from Cold Lake, Alberta, had a much lengthier playing career, beginning his NHL career in 1974-75 with the Minnesota North Stars. He was claimed from the Chicago Black Hawks in the 1979 expansion draft, and scored a career-best nine goals and 40 points in 78 games with the Oilers in 1979-80. After scoring three goals and 23 points in 49 games in 1981-82, Hicks played just another 18 games in the NHL.

On March 6th, 1984, the Oilers acquired the rights of Risto Jalo from the Capitals for a 1985 fourth-round pick. Jalo was drafted in the seventh round of the 1981 draft, and played just three NHL games, all with the Oilers in 1985-86 where he had three assists.

Jalo, a forward, spent the majority of his career in Finland, playing plenty of seasons with Ilves, both before and after his short NHL stint. He also had an 18-game stint in Italy, before finishing his career with HPK.

With the fourth-rounder the Capitals received, they selected Guelph, Ontario native Larry Shaw. The right-shot defenceman played five Ontario Hockey League seasons, then just 11 professional games in the American Hockey League and International Hockey League.

The last trade of the 1980s came on July 22, 1988, as the Oilers sent the rights of Geoff Courtnall to the Capitals for Greg Adams. Four months prior, the Oilers sent Andy Moog to the Boston Bruins in exchange for Bill Ranford, a 1988 second-round pick, and Courtnall.

After playing 12 regular season games and winning the 1988 Stanley Cup with the Oilers, Courtnall played two seasons with the Washington Capitals, a portion of a season with the St. Louis Blues, five seasons with the Vancouver Canucks, and five more seasons with the Blues.

A year before Courtnall began his junior career with the Victoria Cougars in the Western Hockey League, Adams finished his final season of junior with the Cougars. Before joining the Oilers, Adams played two seasons with the Philadelphia Flyers, a season with the Hartford Whalers, and five seasons with the Capitals. It was with the Capitals in 1985-86 where Adams had his career-year, scoring 18 goals and 56 points in 78 games.

During the 1988-89 season, Adams scored four goals and nine points in 49 games, but was traded to the Vancouver Canucks in March of 1989. The Fuller Lake, British Columbia native spent 12 games with his home province team, seven games with the Québec Nordiques, and 28 games with the Detroit Red Wings, ending his career after the 1989-90 season.

Trades in the 1990s

After the Adams trade, the Oilers and Capitals didn’t make another trade for almost 11 years. On February 3rd, 1999, the Oilers sent the rights of Barrie Moore to the Capitals for Brad Church. Although Church was drafted 17th overall by the Capitals in 1995, he played just two NHL games, both with the Capitals in 1997-98. 

Instead, most of Church’s career was spent in the minor leagues, split between the AHL and ECHL, plus a season in the UHL, ending in 2005-06. Since retiring, he’s coached, first with the Phoenix Roadrunners of the ECHL from 2006-07 until 2008-09, and most recently with the University of New England, where he’s served as an assistant for the past four seasons.

Barrie Moore, no relation to Drew, was initially acquired by the Oilers in the Miroslav Šatan trade in 1997. He only played four games with the Oilers, and then one game with the Capitals, before playing in the AHL, IHL, ECHL, UHL, and the United Kingdom to end his career. Funnily enough, Šatan’s son, Miroslav Šatan Jr. was drafted 212th overall by the Capitals in 2024.

That was technically the only trade between the Capitals and Oilers in the 1990s, but the next trade came just a month and four days into Y2K, so it’s going here. On February 4th, 2000, the Oilers acquired Alexandre Volchkov from the Capitals for a 2001 fourth-rounder.

Church was the Capitals’ first-rounder in 1995 (17th overall), while Volchkov was their first-rounder in 1996. Volchkov, drafted fourth overall, played just three NHL games with the Capitals in 1999-2000, where he was held pointless. That was his final season in North America, as he played just 25 games with the Oilers’ AHL team before returning to Russia. His career ended in 2007-08.

The Capitals later flipped that pick in March 2001, sending Alexei Tezikov and the pick to the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim for Jason Marshall. At the 2001 draft, the Ducks used it to select defenceman Brandon Rogers, who spent the majority of his career at the AHL level after four seasons at the University of Michigan. In his final three seasons, Rogers played in Slovakia, Italy, and Germany.

The Mike Grier trade

If you had to point to the most notable trade between the Capitals and Oilers, it’d have to be the Mike Grier trade. On October 7th, 2002, the Oilers sent Grier to the Capitals for a 2003 second-round and a 2003 third-round pick.

Grier was selected 219th overall in 1993 by the St. Louis Blues, but was traded alongside Curtis Joseph to the Oilers for two first round picks before playing a game with the Blues. The 1996 first was used to select Marty Reasoner (who’d later play for the Oilers) and the 1997 first was used to select Matt Zultek by the Los Angeles Kings. 

That 1997 pick is an interesting one, as it originally belonged to the Blues, but was given to the Oilers as compensation for signing Shayne Corson. Once it returned to the hands of the Blues, it was involved in the trade that brought Wayne Gretzky to Missouri.

Anyway, Grier went on to break out with the Oilers, scoring 15 goals and 32 points in 79 games during his rookie season in 1996-97. He scored a career-high 20 goals and 44 points in 1998-99, then hit the 20-goal mark for second and last time during the 2000-01 season. In his final eight games with the Oilers, he scored eight goals and 25 points in 82 games.

Upon joining the Capitals, Grier went on to score 15 goals and 32 games in 82 games in 2002-03, but was traded midway through the 2003-04 season to the Buffalo Sabres. He spent another season in Buffalo, before signing with the San Jose Sharks to begin the 2006-07 season.

Grier ended his career with the Sabres, playing the 2009-10 and 2010-11 seasons with the team. He was apart of the Sabres squad that made the playoffs in 2011, the most recent time the team played for the Stanley Cup. Grier did some assistant coaching in the late 2010s, but now serves as the Sharks’ general manager.

Stortini was selected with the 2003 third. The Elliot Lake native played 256 games with the Oilers, scoring 14 goals and 41 points during the early potion of the Decade of Darkness. He played an additional game with the Nashville Predators in 2011-12, before spending the rest of his career in the AHL. He won his second Calder Cup in 2018-19, retiring shortly after. Stortini serves as an assistant coach of the AHL’s Tuscon Roadrunners.

Yevgeni Tunik, the Oilers selection in the second round of the 2003 draft, spent all but one season in Russia, and only played four games in their first tier.

The most recent trade

After the Grier trade, it took another 11 years before the Oilers and Capitals traded with one another. On April 3rd, 2013, the Oilers sent Dane Byers to the Capitals for Garrett Stafford.

Stafford was an undrafted player who was a career AHL’er, aside from a cup of tea with the Detroit Red Wings in 2007-08, the Dallas Stars in 2008-09, and the Phoenix Coyotes in 2010-11, totalling seven NHL games. His eight regular season games and 17 playoff games with the AHL’s Oklahoma City Barons were his games in North America. Stafford played in Sweden, Switzerland, and Finland to end his career, retiring after the 2014-15 season.

Byers was a second-round pick that didn’t quite work out. He played a game with the New York Rangers in 2007-08, five games with the Original Six team in 2009-10, and eight games with the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2011, spending most of his career in the AHL. Byers began playing overseas in 2015-16, spending that season in Finland, the next in Germany, and his final two in the United Kingdom.