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Top 100 Oilers: No. 77 — Zack Kassian

Originally posted on Oilersnation | By Liam Horrobin | Last updated Sep 17, 2025 11:21 AM ET

Oilersnation is reviving the Top 100 Edmonton Oilers of All Time list, a project originally created by the late Robin Brownlee in 2015. Zack Kassian comes in at No. 77 on our updated 2025 list. He wasn’t ranked on Brownlee’s original list.

A nothing deal in late December 2015 turned into something bigger than any of us expected.

Zack Kassian came over from Montreal in exchange for Ben Scrivens. He was 24, fresh out of the NHLPA’s assistance program, and had hit waivers a week earlier. The Oilers retained 24 percent of Scrivens’ money, which basically made Kassian’s hit a wash with the goalie’s.

Edmonton squeezed fantastic value out of him. He became a tone-setter on the teams that brought playoff hockey back and still draws a roar every time he shows up on the Rogers Place screen.

Not bad for a player whose NHL career looked cooked.

Via The Nation Network

Notable

With thundering hits, timely goals, and face-pressed-to-the-glass celebrations, Kassian left a mark on Oil Country.

The 2017 return to the playoffs is where the legend really took off. Down 1-0 in the series to San Jose, Kassian’s shorthanded breakaway in Game 2 blew the roof off. He followed it up with the lone goal in Game 3. That run cemented him as a fan favourite.

Everyone remembers the Matthew Tkachuk rivalry that reignited the Battle of Alberta. Without Kassian’s needling, answering, and setting the temperature, that era looks a lot different.

His final season in Edmonton was quieter with six goals in 58 games, but he still scored the Oilers’ last goal of that spring in the Western Conference Final, a fitting curtain call on his time here.

The Story

Before Edmonton, Kassian was a classic power-forward prospect. Buffalo took him 13th overall in 2009 after big OHL years with Peterborough and Memorial Cup-winning Windsor. He broke in with the Sabres in 2011-12, then moved to Vancouver in the Cody Hodgson trade. The tools were obvious. Consistency and off-ice hurdles got in the way.

The Montreal stint barely got started before the car crash and leave for treatment. That is when Edmonton took a chance. He went to Bakersfield, did the work, and earned his call-up. From there, he gave the Oilers exactly what they needed: straight-line speed, forecheck, net-front chaos, and enough finish to ride shotgun with stars. He popped 15 goals in 2018-19 and 15 more in 2019-20, earning top-line looks with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl and a four-year extension.

The contract outlived the production. As the Oilers fell into a tough salary cap situation, Kassian was moved to Arizona, where he scored two goals in 51 games. A short stop in Europe followed, then retirement.

Kassian wrapped up his NHL career with 661 games, 92 goals, and 203 points. In Edmonton alone, he played 412 regular-season games and 37 in the playoffs, scoring 55 goals and 135 points. The numbers tell part of it. The rest is the noise he made when the games got mean and fun again.

What Brownlee said

Like many who were glued to the action between the Edmonton Oilers and San Jose Sharks at Rogers Place Friday while watching Zack Kassian make it his mission in life to dismantle the Sharks in a game the Oilers absolutely had to win, I got caught up in the moment.

How could you not? In the same city where not so long ago Kassian was public enemy No. 1 and Oilers’ fans hated his guts after he broke Sam Gagner’s jaw with a reckless high stick and further infuriated the faithful by mocking Gagner, fans chanted his name Friday – “Kass-ian-Kass-ian-Kass-ian.” It was as dramatic a turnaround from villain to hero as I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a few over the years.

Kassian not only scored the winning goal on a shorthanded breakaway in the second period of a must-have 2-0 Edmonton win in Game 2, he rumbled around the ice like a man possessed, finishing the night with a half-dozen hits, including a freight-train job on Logan Couture that had the crowd roaring.

Understandably, it’s Kassian’s balls-out performance that matters most to fans. The series with the Sharks is tied 1-1 heading back down to San Jose and Kassian was the driving and undeniable force in making it happen. The bigger picture, how Kassian has embraced sobriety for 18 months now and turned his life around since wearing the black hat as a visitor to Edmonton, is what has me happy for him. That’s what really matters, and it’s no game.