After years of losing to him, Oilers add Perry for pivotal playoff push

EDMONTON — Corey Perry is, basically, Brad Marchand West. 

As hated by Edmonton Oilers fans over the years as Marchand is by Leafs Nation, they’ve cursed Perry’s name in Northern Alberta  since that night on Oct. 10, 2005 when he slipped his first NHL goal past goalie Jussi Markkanen, to the time in the 2017 playoffs when the Oilers blew that 3-1 lead with 3:15 left in Game 4 down in Anaheim. 

The refs were dead blind that night, as they always seemed to be around Perry, and the Oilers were as nervous as a young team could possibly be. And guess who out-waited Cam Talbot in double-overtime to save the day for the Ducks? 

He is clutch, this Perry. You’ve got to admit it. 

Oh so clutch over the years. 

“There’s just something about the playoffs. I feel like there’s a different scent in the air,” he said on Monday, sitting next to Oilers GM Ken Holland after his first practice on Connor McDavid’s team. “You push everything to the side, and for eight weeks you have one job. 

“There's nothing better than winning, and that's what it comes down here,” he concluded. “That's why you play this game. To win.” 

Perry has won a Stanley Cup, Olympic gold, World Junior gold, World Cup gold, World Championship gold, an Ontario Hockey League title, a Hart Trophy and a Rocket Richard Trophy. He’s played 1,273 regular-season games and 196 more in the playoffs. 

“He has  played in some of the biggest games you can possibly play in and won those games,” McDavid said. “You can't teach that type of experience. You can't replicate that, other than (acquiring) the guy that's been there and done (it).” 

Now, Oilers fans will be forced to begin cheering for “that guy” starting Saturday against Nashville, or so goes the plan. 

Holland signed Perry to a rest-of-the-season, cheapo deal — $775,000 plus another $325,000 available in games-played bonuses — adding vital experience as Edmonton takes take its sternest run to date at a Stanley Cup under its captain, McDavid. 

He is, you’ll have to admit, one of his generation’s truly clutch players. Even if he has always been a sneaky, dirty rat.  

“You kind of described him yourself there,” Joe Pavelski told us once, as he and Perry were carrying the Dallas Stars to a Stanley Cup Final loss to Tampa inside the Edmonton bubble. “You just have an understanding that, whatever it takes, that’s what he’s going to do to win. You can feel the mindset, in the locker room or on the ice. 

“Whatever it takes. There was no bigger moment for us tonight. He showed up and got it done.” 

That night, with their Stars trailing the series 3-1, Perry had opened the scoring and then won the game with a goal in double-OT. Two goals in a 3-2 win, with the Stars facing extinction. 

He was brilliant. 

“I was in the league at 22 years old and had the opportunity to win,” Perry said that night in the bubble. “Here we are, 13 years later and I have a chance to do it with this group.” 

The Stars lost that 2020 Final with Perry, the way Montreal lost in 2021 and Tampa lost in 2022, as Perry moved around in search of one more ring to add to the 2007 Stanley Cup he and Ryan Getzlaf won as NHL sophomores in Anaheim back in 2007 — when McDavid was a 10-year-old kid. 

Today, that journey leads him to Edmonton at age 38, where Perry finds as good a chance to win one more Stanley Cup as any veteran could ask for today, on Jan. 22, 2024. 

He is a free agent after his contract in Chicago was terminated when he committed a non-criminal, to date non-disclosed indiscretion at a Blackhawks team function. 

Perry apologized publicly, sought and received a pardon from NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, and on Monday was very open about the path to personal improvement that he has been on over the past two months, thanking his counsellors and admitting how “humbling” the process has been. 

Having improved his Oilers by adding the controversial Evander Kane two Februaries ago, Holland was quick to inform agent Pat Morris that the Oilers would have a dressing room stall and a uniform ready for Perry as soon as felt like he was ready to join them. 

Why, you might ask? This is why: 

Two springs ago the Oilers were swept in the Conference Final by a Colorado Avalanche team that was clearly better and further along the Stanley Cup journey than they were. So the Oilers came back, and a year later lost in six games to a Vegas team that was not, in fact, head and shoulders ahead of where Edmonton thought they were. 

The Oilers had led every game of that six-game series, but watched from the lakes and clubhouses of a hockey player’s summer as the Golden Knights hoisted a Stanley Cup that this team still believes could have been theirs. 

So the Oilers went to work on the little things in their collective game, and through the duration of this 13-game winning streak — and the surrounding 21-3 run — we can identify the tangible aspects of a team that looks ready to win games that they used to lose come May and June. 

Corey Perry? He is in charge of the in-tangibles. 

Sure, they’ll ask for a clutch goal or two from this fourth-line right winger along the playoff trail. And if Zach Hyman misses a few shifts or a game along the way, Perry may be asked to man the net front on a power play or two. 

But here in Edmonton, where the leadership group has won and lost enough playoff series since 2017 to know what to do, Perry arrives as the icing — not the cake. 

He’ll replace Adam Erne (waived Monday) and take up no more cap space. He’ll perhaps take the odd shift on Leon Draisaitl’s right flank, but will play far more minutes next to Derek Ryan or Dylan Holloway. 

And he’ll be what he’s always been: a pain in the ass to whomever the Oilers play against. 

Oh boy, Oilers fan. 

This is going to take some getting used to.