Top 100 Oilers: No. 78 — Jimmy Carson

Notable

Carson lit up the QMJHL with the Verdun Junior Canadiens, then went second overall in 1986 to the Kings. As a teenager, he posted 79 points as a rookie and 55 goals and 107 points in his second season, at the time the most points in a season by an American-born player. In his first year as an Oiler, he put up 49 goals and 100 points.

Across a career that included stops in Los Angeles, Edmonton, Detroit, Los Angeles again, Vancouver, and Hartford, Carson scored 275 goals and 561 points over 626 NHL games.

The Story

Edmonton acquired Carson on August 9, 1988, in a blockbuster that also brought Martin Gelinas and three first-round picks to the Oilers, along with a lot of cash into Peter Pocklington’s bank account.

The ask on the young pivot was massive — fill the skates of The Great One. He answered with 49 goals and 100 points in 1988-89, centering big minutes and carrying a heavy spotlight every night. The Oilers had a turbulent spring and fell to Gretzky and the Kings in the first round, which didn’t help the noise around the team or around Carson.

By the fall of 1989, the fit was strained. A Detroit kid at heart, Carson asked for a move closer to home and away from the constant Gretzky comparisons. On November 2, 1989, the Oilers sent him and Kevin McClelland to the Red Wings in a franchise-altering trade for Petr Klima, Joe Murphy, Adam Graves, and Jeff Sharples.

That deal paid off in June. Klima scored a triple-overtime game-winner in Game 1 of the Stanley Final, while Murphy and Graves joined Gelinas on a “Kid Line” that gave an aging core some extra jump.

Carson went on to produce in Detroit, later returned to the Kings, and had short runs in Vancouver and Hartford. In Edmonton, his chapter was brief but important. He arrived with impossible expectations, scored a ton, and then became the piece that helped bring in the depth that finished the dynasty.

What Brownlee said

Jimmy Carson’s biggest shortcoming during his brief time with the Edmonton Oilers wasn’t that he didn’t produce. He did, amassing 50 goals and 103 points in just 84 games. Carson’s failing was that he wasn’t Wayne Gretzky and, really, what was he supposed to do about that?

As the most significant player coming to Edmonton from the Los Angeles Kings in the trade that saw the Great One sold to Tinseltown Aug. 9, 1988, Carson, an unquestionably talented young man, had zero chance of getting over with a still stunned and angry Oiler fan base. He didn’t.

Carson, acquired with Marty Gelinas and draft picks in the Gretzky deal, was coming off seasons of 37 and 55 goals In L.A. – giving him more goals, 92, than any other teenager in NHL history, including No. 99. Carson is, to this day, the second-youngest player to reach 100 goals, after Gretzky.

Under any other circumstances, Carson’s numbers in his first season with the Oilers, 49-51-100 in 80 games, would be cause for high-fives. Of course, these weren’t other circumstances. Gretzky, along with Mike Krushelnyski and Marty McSorley, was in L.A. where he had 168 points and, just to rub it in, led the Kings past the Oilers in the first round of the 1989 playoffs.

The Last 10

• No. 88 — Igor Ulanov
• No. 87 — Zdeno Ciger
• No. 86 — Devan Dubnyk
• 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