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Top 100 Oilers: No. 87 — Zdeno Ciger

Originally posted on Oilersnation | By Zach Laing | Last updated Sep 2, 2025 7:04 PM ET

Oilersnation is reviving the Top 100 Edmonton Oilers of All Time list, a project originally created by the late Robin Brownlee in 2015. Zdeno Ciger comes in at No. 87 on our updated 2025 list. He was ranked No. 67 on Brownlee’s original list.

If there was one thing that Zdeno Ciger was good at, during his time in Edmonton, it was finishing on his scoring chances. He scored 64 goals, 155 points and 204 points in 204 games, with a 15.3 shooting percentage across the four years he spent with the Oilers.

Via The Nation Network

Notable

Acquired from the New Jersey Devils along with Kevin Todd for Bernie Nicholls in January 1993, the 23-year-old joined the post-dynasty Oilers, Ciger was dragged along for four playoff-less years in Edmonton.

He popped in the last half of that 1992-93 season, scoring nine goals and 24 points in 37 games, and put up a solid 22 goals and 57 points in 84 games. But as soon as he put up a solid season, he left for Slovakia, playing just five games in the NHL at the end of the 1994-95 campaign.

His 1995-96 season, what would be his last in Edmonton, would be his best. 31 goals and 70 points in 78 games as he paced the team in goal scoring, finishing second in points behind Doug Weight. Then 26, the Oilers hoped he finally put it together, but once again he was off to Slovakia the following year, where he would remain for six more.

Via The Nation Network

The Story

Drafted by the Devils in the third round of the 1988 draft, he played parts of three seasons there before arriving in Edmonton. Despite leaving for Slovakia after that 70-point campaign, Edmonton held his NHL rights, watching the expansion Nashville Predators claim him in the 1998 expansion draft.

He wouldn’t return to the NHL until the 2001-02 season, splitting that lone season between the New York Rangers and Tampa Bay Lightning, before it was back to his home country.

He spent some time coaching in Slovakia’s top league between 2006 and 2011, had stints for their national team between 2015 and 2017, and coached U18 and U20 teams between 2021 and 2024.

What Brownlee said

Zdeno Ciger is one of those players who always left me wanting more. In his case because I thought we were just starting to see the best of Ciger when he opted to call an end to his time with the awful Edmonton Oiler teams of the early 1990s and go home to Slovakia.

Having endured parts of four utterly forgettable seasons in Edmonton, 1992-93 to 1995-96, with an Oiler team that missed the playoffs every year he was here, Ciger was coming off the most productive campaign of his NHL career when he decided to go home rather than toil in a half-empty building for a team that was truly atrocious in the have-not days.