Top 100 Oilers: No. 70 — Adam Graves

Notable

Adam Graves just fell out of the first round of the NHL Draft, selected 22nd overall in 1986 by the Detroit Red Wings.

His junior career culminated in a Memorial Cup with the Windsor Spitfires in 87-88 after being sent down by the Red Wings. But he couldn’t get his game going the next season.

The year following, with just one assist in 13 games, he was traded. On Nov. 2, 1989, Sather struck one of his signature deals. Oilers forward Jimmy Carson had requested a trade, homesick and unable to handle the pressures of being Gretzky’s replacement. Sather took a gamble.

He acquired Graves, along with struggling 1st overall pick Joe Murphy, off-the-ice issues-plagued Petr Klima, and Jeff Sharples, for Jimmy Carson, Kevin McClelland, and a round 5 pick in the 1991 draft.

The deal struck paydirt.

Graves was a key depth piece to the 1990 Stanley Cup, molding into the championship-calibre asset of his later career: a gritty, honest, hard-working player.

He was 21 years old, sure, but a glue guy that, amongst fellow young players, could help command such a neophyte line to play together throughout the Stanley Cup playoffs.

His scoring touch wasn’t yet developed. In his two seasons, he topped out at 25 points as a high, going through scoring struggles at times. But he was the type of teammate that players fawn over. A leader in waiting.

Graves decided to sign an offer sheet after the 1990-91 season with the New York Rangers, the place where he’d be immortalized in the future.

Playing ten seasons with the Rangers, he found his goal-scoring, setting a franchise record with the Blueshirts in 1993-94 with 52 goals. But the biggest goal was in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final to make it 2-0, and help end the 54-year championship drought in the Big Apple.

His character was the most celebrated.

Graves won the King Clancy Memorial Trophy in 93-94 and the Bill Masterton Trophy in 00-01. Graves finished his playing days with the San Jose Sharks in 02-03, playing 1152 regular season games, 125 playoff games, two Stanley Cups, a Memorial Cup, and had his number retired in New York and Windsor.

Not a bad career.

The Story

With that said, Graves’ tenure in Edmonton ended in ugly terms.

A day after captain Mark Messier formally requested a trade, Graves signed an offer sheet from the New York Rangers, a five-year contract for $2.4 million. A massive contract at the time.

Sather was incensed. “The guy had seven goals,” he said. ​

He phoned up Rangers GM Neil Smith – who had scouted Graves with Detroit back in ‘86 – and told him that “he’d just cost himself Mark Messier.”

That didn’t happen. Messier was traded a little while later.

Edmonton received Troy Mallette as compensation (who played just 15 games before Sather dealt him), and New York essentially became Oilers East, as seven former Oilers won the Cup in 1994.

What Brownlee said

There’s a handful of players on this Top 100 list who made it based on what I saw, on the ice and off it, as opposed to the raw numbers they amassed during their time with the Edmonton Oilers. Adam Graves, who played a key role in Edmonton’s fifth Stanley Cup win in 1990 as a member of the Kid Line, is one of those players.

Graves was one of those throwback guys, a glue guy, during his too-brief tenure with the Oilers. He was that rare mixture of skill, toughness and willingness to do whatever it took to win that doesn’t come along very often. We got just a glimpse of Graves in the 139 regular season and 40 playoff games he spent here before he went on to bigger and better things in Manhattan.

Simply put, Graves thrived outside the spotlight in Edmonton in a support role to Messier, Kurri and Simpson as Edmonton’s 1980s Dynasty Days wound down before taking over centre stage when he later landed in New York. “It was such an excellent team atmosphere,” Graves said. “We were together as any group of guys in the league.

“Everyone felt that they were a part of the team. No one felt left out. Because of that, even if you had a small role on the team, you were happy. You were glad to be able to give whatever little you could to the team. You did everything you could. I have many wonderful memories in my two years with the Oilers. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the team.”

The Last 10

• No. 80 — Steve Staios
• No. 79 — Mike Smith
• No. 78 — Jimmy Carson
• No. 77 — Zack Kassian
• No. 76 — Eric Brewer
• No. 75 — Risto Siltanen
• No. 74 — Raffi Torres
• No. 73 — Don Jackson
• No. 72 — Andrew Cogliano
• No. 71 — Anson Carter