Oilers’ Lazar Brings Championship Experience Back to Edmonton

Lazar, 30, has played 11 seasons in the NHL, totalling 47 goals and 78 assists for 125 points in 572 regular-season games. The Vernon, BC, product spent 2024-25 with the New Jersey Devils, notching two goals and three assists in 48 games.

His statistics certainly don’t jump off the page, but Lazar has done something multiple times that no one on the current Oilers roster has done even once: bring a championship to the City of Edmonton.

Storied Oil Kings Career

From 2010 to 2014, Lazar played for the Edmonton Oil Kings of the Western Hockey League (WHL), helping the Oil Kings capture the Ed Chynoweth Cup twice (2012, 2014) and the Memorial Cup once (2014). In each of Lazar’s three full seasons with the major junior team, Edmonton finished first in the Central Division and went to play in the WHL championship series.

It was an unprecedented run of success, and Lazar played a massive role. During his Oil Kings career, the 6-foot-0 centre appeared in 199 regular season games, scoring 99 times and adding 70 assists while recording a plus/minus rating of plus-83. He is the team’s all-time WHL playoffs leader with 28 goals in 67 games.

Lazar, who was selected 17th overall by the Ottawa Senators in the 2013 NHL Draft, had one of the great campaigns in Oil Kings history in 2013-14, leading Edmonton with 76 points while becoming the second modern-day Oil Kings player to top 40 goals (41) in a season and setting an Oil Kings WHL single-season record with nine game-winning goals (since surpassed by Vince Loschiavo, with 11 in 2018-19). And he did all this despite missing a chunk of games while playing for Canada at the 2014 World Juniors in Sweden. But he was just getting started.

WHL Championship Run

The Oil Kings cruised through the Eastern Conference bracket in the 2014 WHL Playoffs, dropping only two games over three series against the Prince Albert Raiders, Brandon Wheat Kings and Medicine Hat Tigers. But they met their match in the Final against the defending champion Portland Winterhawks.

Portland won the first two games, but the Oil Kings responded with three consecutive victories, putting themselves in position to close out the best-of-seven series on home ice. They were less than 20 minutes from a championship, leading by a score of 5-2 in the third period of Game 6 at Rexall Place, before the Winterhawks authored a stunning comeback that ended with the visitors winning 6-5 in overtime.

Lazar was never as focused as he’d been in the hours leading up to Game 7 at historic Veteran Memorial Coliseum in Portland’s Rose Quarter. The Oil Kings’ alternate captain was an absolute beast that night, setting the tone with his effort, energy, and physicality. His short-handed goal midway through the second period broke a 1-1 tie, putting the Oil Kings ahead to stay. They ultimately won by a score of 4-2, capturing the Ed Chynoweth Cup and punching their ticket to the 2014 Memorial Cup in London.

Memorable Memorial Cup

That Game 7 short-handed marker was the biggest goal of Lazar’s life until the Memorial Cup semi-final against the Val-d’Or Foreurs of the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League (QMJHL).

The Oil Kings’ star centre ended the longest game in Memorial Cup history when he put the puck past Foreurs netminder Antoine Bibeau at 2:42 of triple overtime, sending his team to the Final. Two days later, they captured junior hockey’s greatest prize with a 6-3 victory over the Guelph Storm in the Final of the 2014 Memorial Cup.

It can’t be overstated what that championship meant to the City of Edmonton. The Oilers had just wrapped up a dreadful 29-44-9 campaign, finishing last in the Western Conference standings for the fourth time in five seasons, and missing the playoffs for an eighth straight year. It would be another year before Connor McDavid was drafted, and two more before the Oilers finally ended their Decade of Darkness postseason drought. At a time when Edmonton needed it most, the Oil Kings gave their hockey-mad city something to celebrate.

Fan Favourite

Ask anyone who has ever interacted with Lazar, and they’ll tell you he’s the most upbeat, friendliest, down-to-earth person you could ever meet. During his Oil Kings tenure, he embraced Edmonton, which in turn fell in love with the ever-smiling kid from small-town Salmon Arm, British Columbia. More than a decade later, after an NHL career that has taken him from the Senators to the Calgary Flames to the Boston Bruins to the Buffalo Sabres to the Vancouver Canucks and finally to the Devils, he’s back.

It’s not a radical statement to say that Lazar isn’t going to be a needle-mover for the Oilers. He’s at best a fourth liner, if not the 13^th forward. But you can never have enough people like Lazar in your organization. Especially for the NHL minimum salary.

While they’ve come agonizingly close, Leon Draisaitl and McDavid haven’t yet won a championship in the Alberta capital. Lazar has. And maybe, just maybe, he can help the Oilers’ superstar duo reach the mountaintop in 2026.