Top 100 Oilers: No. 75 — Risto Siltanen

Notable

Siltanen arrived in Edmonton as a free agent from Finland at 20 years old, and stepped right in helping the team move the puck from the backend. He wasn’t large in stature standing at five-foot-eight and 173 lbs., he was the smallest player in the WHA at the time. That didn’t stop him though, becoming someone Glen Sather leaned on.

His final year with the Oilers was his best in the NHL, scoring 17 goals and 53 points in 79 games, adding another three goals and five points in five games as the young Oilers lost in five to the L.A. Kings.

Having drafted Coffey sixth overall in the 1980 draft, the Oilers found themselves with an embarrassment of riches that season, having the two slinging pucks up the ice to the young Wayne Gretzky and co. Coffey racked up 29 goals and 89 points in 80 games, with the pair combining for 152 points.

The Story

The riches prompted the Oilers to move on from Siltanen, then 23. Alongside Brent Loney, he was sent to the Hartford Whalers for Ken Linseman and Don Nachbaur, the former of which became a big part of the 1982-83 and 1983-84 teams.

Siltanen would never replicate the offensive success he had in Edmonton — understandably so considering the firepower Gretkzy, Messier and co. brought — but he put together a solid career, spending the next four years in Hartford. He’d later be dealt to the Quebec Nordiques in 1986, spending a year and a half there, before returning home, spending another 10 years playing professional hockey.

What Brownlee said

It was a different era of course, and younger fans might not even remember Siltanen, who toiled for the Oilers before the Stanley Cup parades on Jasper Avenue began. Back then, before Paul Coffey had fully developed into one of the greatest offensive defencemen the NHL has ever seen, it was the pint-sized Siltanen who carried the mail on the back end for the Oilers and, mercy, did he deliver.

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All told, Siltanen had 151 points in 206 games with the Oilers before he was traded to the Hartford Whalers with the rights to Brent Loney for Ken Linseman and Don Nackbaur in August of 1982. The only thing missing from Siltanen’s tenure in Edmonton was a Stanley Cup ring. Siltanen was a terrific player here, the kind the Oilers of today could surely use.

The Last 10

• No. 85 — Jaroslav Pouzar
• No. 84 — Jarret Stoll
• No. 83 — Bernie Nicholls
• No. 82 — Georges Laraque
• No. 81 — Rem Murray
• No. 80 — Steve Staios
• No. 79 — Mike Smith
• No. 78 — Jimmy Carson
• No. 77 — Zack Kassian
• No. 76 — Eric Brewer