Wayne Gretzky: On the Ice With... (4 page)

The following spring, the WHA’s Avco Cup was a historical footnote. The WHA, which had existed from 1972–79 in an almost constant
state of war with the established NHL, was finally merging with its rival.

Only six WHA franchises finished the final year. The Edmonton Oilers, the Winnipeg Jets, the Quebec Nordiques, and the New
England Whalers
were absorbed into the National Hockey League; the Cincinnati Stingers and the Birmingham Bulls folded. Despite being only
eighteen years old, Wayne was allowed to remain an Edmonton Oiler, but now he was in the NHL.

The NHL is currently made up of twenty-six teams, nineteen American and seven Canadian. There are two sections, the Eastern
Conference and the Western Conference. The Eastern is divided into the Northeast and Atlantic Divisions; the Western into
the Central and Pacific Divisions. The Edmonton Oilers are members of this last division.

The merger of the WHA and the NHL was hailed as a great move for hockey. From the Edmonton fans’ standpoint it meant only
one thing: a place in the big league. It took the Oilers just eleven days to sell fifteen thousand season tickets. All the
Oiler fans were eager to see how their team would stack up against the best of the NHL. In particular, eyes were on their
blond boy wonder, Number 99, the “Gretzky Kid.”

For the fifth straight year, Wayne would be a rookie.

Many hockey experts openly stated that the tighter checking in the NHL would slow Wayne’s freewheeling skating and brilliant
passing. Could he stand solid against the very best competition? At eighteen, could he continue to be the prolific scoring
machine he had been at every other stop?

Before the 1979–80 season began, Wayne set a personal goal for himself. Displaying no lack of confidence in his own ability,
he predicted he would finish no lower than third in the NHL in scoring. He judged veteran superstars Marcel Dionne of the
Los Angeles Kings and Guy Lafleur of the Montreal Canadiens as his chief competition for the Art Ross Trophy, an award given
to the league high-scorer at the end of the season.

On October 10, 1979, Wayne’s NHL career began. The Oilers traveled to Chicago to face the Blackhawks of the Central Division.
The Black-hawks were one of the NHL’s six original flagship franchises, and their Chicago Stadium home was a raucous building
to play in.

Wayne openly discussed how anxious he and his
teammates were before the game. “I’ll have butterflies in my stomach when they’re playing the national anthem,” he said after
practice the day before the match.

Despite his nervousness, it didn’t take Wayne long to notch his first career point, assisting on a goal by nineteen-year-old
Kevin Lowe, the Oilers’ first-round draft pick the previous spring. With the Oilers trailing Chicago 2–0, Wayne passed to
line-mate Brett Callighen, then streaked to the front of the Blackhawks’ net to create a screen in front of goalie Tony Esposito.
Brett Callighen fed the puck to defenseman Kevin Lowe, who fired a shot past Esposito.

But Esposito proved to be too good for Wayne and the Oilers. Wayne had six shots on goal, none of which went in. “I used to
hear stories about how good Espo was and tonight he showed me why,” he told the media after the game. “I had four really good
scoring chances and couldn’t put the puck in the net.”

Only four nights later, though, Wayne collected his first NHL goal. With about a minute left to play, the Oilers trailed the
Vancouver Canucks 4 to 3.
Wayne partially fanned on his shot, but the puck somehow rolled off his stick and dribbled in to tie the game at 4–4.

Although Wayne was performing steadily through the first half of the season, the Oilers were not. Mired in or near last place,
the club was reminded that this was not the WHA. For a team that had won the World Hockey Association regular season title
the previous year, it was a hard adjustment period.

Though his team lagged, the only thing that slowed Wayne through the early season was a bout of tonsillitis. Even in his weakened
state (at one point he lost eleven pounds), Wayne had an impressive line of 22 goals and 35 assists for 57 points at the halfway
point of the season. He was fifth in the league in scoring, 26 points behind Marcel Dionne. For the second year in a row,
Wayne was rewarded by being named a league All-Star.

After fifty-two games Wayne had moved into third place in scoring, racking up 84 points. Dionne’s first-place lead had been
cut to 15. Guy Lafleur was ahead of Wayne by 10. If Wayne was to win the Art Ross Trophy, he had to turn up the volume another
notch.

As a team, the Oilers showed improvement in the second half of the season. A 9–1 defeat of Lafleur’s Canadiens, the defending
Stanley Cup champions, helped bolster their confidence. The final playoff spot in the Campbell Conference was suddenly within
their grasp.

In a 9–2 rout of the Pittsburgh Penguins, Wayne pumped in 3 third-period goals. He now had 121 points, enough to move him
into second place and within 5 points of Dionne. On April 2, 1980, at nineteen years and two months, he became the youngest
player in league history to score 50 goals.

Hockey fans throughout Canada couldn’t get enough of him. Even those who had once openly ridiculed him now accepted him as
the greatest young player on the ice.

One town in particular welcomed him with open arms. His hometown of Brantford named him Athlete of the Year. When the Oilers
traveled to nearby Toronto to play the Maple Leafs, the Garden — the same building Wayne had been booed in on Brantford Day
five years earlier — was sold out. Wayne himself couldn’t get enough tickets for this “homecoming” game. His brother Keith
had to trade a scalper an autographed Gretzky stick for two tickets!

Wayne did not disappoint his fans. From the moment he took to the ice, he played what many later claimed was his greatest
game ever. He was in absolute control, putting in 2 goals and 4 assists to lead the team to an 8-to-5 victory. His effort
was enough to even him with Dionne at 133 points. More important, the win got the Oilers closer to wrapping up the sixteenth
and last playoff spot in the Stanley Cup race.

The Oilers did manage to grab the final playoff spot by passing Washington by 2 points. The Stanley Cup playoffs would come
to Edmonton.

As the NHL teams finished up the final battles, a more personal competition was being fought. Wayne and Marcel Dionne were
neck and neck in the race for the Art Ross Trophy. Number 99 tallied 3 points with a goal and 2 assists in the Oilers’ last
game of the season. Dionne needed 2 points to tie Wayne for the title. Two assists later, they ended the season at 137 points
each.

Yet in the end, the scoring honors went to Dionne. When the points were broken down into
goals versus assists, the Los Angeles King had 53 goals to Wayne’s 51. To the people making the final decision, this put Dionne
ahead.

To Wayne and his family, however, it didn’t make sense. The Art Ross Trophy is awarded to the player who scores the most points.
If two players score the same number of points, logically the honor should be shared. Walt Gretzky wondered out loud at the
decision. In his opinion, it seemed to devalue assists, the importance of which had always been stressed to young hockey players.
But conflicting message or not, the decision stood firm. Wayne would just have to be content with second place.

That blow was sweetened somewhat by the two awards he
was
given. Ineligible for the league’s Calder Trophy for Rookie of the Year because of his WHA experience, Wayne instead walked
off with the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy, the league’s sportsmanship award. He also became the only rookie to capture the Hart
Memorial Trophy as the league’s Most Valuable Player.

Wayne was thrilled about the commendations. “Winning the two awards is an unbelievable honor, especially being the first player
to do it since Stan
Mikita,” he said, referring to the Chicago Blackhawks Hall of Famer. “When I think about the kind of player [he is], I realize
what a feat it is to accomplish this.”

The Oilers showed grit in their first NHL Stanley Cup playoff series. Though they were swept three games to none by the number
one seeded Philadelphia Flyers, the Oilers took the Flyers to overtime in Game One and double overtime in Game Three.

Their first season in the NHL was over.

At the end of 1979–80, Wayne went home to have his tonsils removed and to relax. His 51-goal, 86-assist season, his two awards,
and his team’s final standing had silenced the doubters about his ability to play in the NHL. And for once, he could look
forward to a new season without the pressure of proving himself all over again.

The team that Number 99 returned to at the start of the 1980–81 season was young and strong. Solid defenseman Kevin Lowe and
outstanding wings Mark Messier and Glenn Anderson had been added in 1979. An offensive defenseman, the flashy Paul Coffey,
was plucked in the first-round draft for 1980. A highly skilled Finnish right wing, Jari Kurri, was taken later, as was goaltender
Andy Moog. Edmonton was slowly but surely building a team of championship caliber.

Mark Messier became one of Wayne’s closest friends and a most valuable player in his own right. He, too, had played briefly
in Indianapolis in the old WHA. An intimidating physical force on the ice, Messier defined the term “power forward.” But it
was the addition of Kurri that proved to have the
most direct positive effect. From the beginning there was an incredible chemistry between center Wayne Gretzky and his right
wing. They always seemed to know where the other was on the ice. The Gretzky-to-Jari pass-and-shoot became a lethal combination.

The enthusiasm of youth played a significant part in the Oilers’ second NHL season. The condescending attitude of the established
teams in the league would soon be challenged by the Oilers’ explosive on-ice offensive. Leading the way was Gretzky, now almost
twenty years old. Throughout the season, he was a force to be reckoned with.

Perhaps his most dramatic achievement of the season came on March 29, 1981 — the night he broke the NHL record for most points
in one season, a record that had stood firm since Phil Esposito had established it nearly a decade earlier.

Entering the game at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena, Wayne found himself tied with the former Boston Bruins’ great with a total
of 152 points. On his first shift of the evening, Wayne skated in alone on a clean breakaway. Later, when a Pittsburgh player
was sent to the penalty box, he took a pass from
Glenn Anderson on a power play, skated along the right wing boards, dodged a check from a Pittsburgh defenseman, and moved
to his favorite spot behind the net. He then slid a perfect pass to Mark Messier, who was waiting in front of the goal. Two
seconds later, the puck was in the net!

Even though he had bested the home team, the Pittsburgh arena gave Wayne a standing ovation. They knew greatness when they
saw it.

And Wayne wasn’t finished. He assisted on goals by linemates Brett Callighen and Jari Kurri as the Oilers skated to a 5–2
win.

In the postgame press conference, Wayne couldn’t temper his elation. “What a tremendous feeling,” he said. “It’s great anytime
you break a record, but we won the hockey game and that’s what we’re here to do.”

NHL president John Ziegler responded with glowing praise the next day. “Your accomplishments in only two years in the NHL
have been truly extraordinary. It is with young players such as yourself in which the future of our great sport rests, and
it quite obviously rests in very capable hands.”

The 1980–81 season, Wayne’s third as a pro, was
one of great personal achievement. His ending stats were amazing: 55 goals plus a record-breaking 109 assists (surpassing
Bobby Orr’s 102) equaled 164 points, 12 better than Esposito’s 152. This time there was no doubt as to who the winner of the
Art Ross Trophy for scoring champion would be. Wayne defeated Marcel Dionne by 29 points. Besides the Art Ross, Wayne received
the Hart Trophy (MVP) and was selected for the first team in the All-Star Game, replacing his rival Marcel Dionne.

The Oilers’ overall regular-season record showed modest improvement from their inaugural NHL campaign. Their 74 points was
5 better than 1979–80. They also moved up two playoff rungs, going into the Stanley Cup playoffs seeded fourteenth.

Still, few people were expecting the Oilers to perform well in the Stanley Cup playoffs. After all, their first opponents
were four-time champs, the Montreal Canadiens.

The Oilers took the first round of games by storm. They waltzed into Montreal and won the first two games against the Canadiens,
6–3 and 3–1. Game Three was back in Edmonton.

The Oilers fans were primed for a nail-biting
match. In order to stay in the playoffs, the Canadiens had to win Game Three. But the Oilers, led by the offensive power of
Number 99, would not be denied. Wayne scored 3 goals, 2 late in the second period. The second goal gave the Oilers a one-point
lead they would not relinquish. A poor pass from Montreal forward Mark Napier turned into an easy goal for the always alert
Wayne Gretzky. The Oilers ended the series with a decisive 6–2 win and moved on to face their next opponents.

The New York Islanders, the defending Cup champions, were up next. The heavily favored New York team took the first two games
at home 8–2 and 6–3. Back in front of their own fans at the Northlands Coliseum, the Oilers won 5–2 in Game Three. Fans flocked
to the rink for Game Four, hoping to see their boys tie things up.

Edmonton came out flying and took an early 2–0 lead on goals by Paul Coffey and Jari Kurri. Then the champion Islanders responded
by putting in 3 of their own, including a goal made when an attempt to clear the puck from in front of the goal backfired.
The Oilers battled back, sending the game into overtime on a goal by Brett Callighen.

But it was not to be. A shot on goal by Islander defenseman Ken Morrow glanced off the skate of Edmonton defenseman Lee Fogolin
and rebounded into the net. Suddenly, the Islanders led the series 3 games to 1.