During the first years of Grant’s career it would have been a stretch to call him an ironman capable of carrying the full workload of a Stanley Cup winner. Coming off his triumph in the 1987 Canada Cup, Grant was at the top of his craft (even if he wasn’t being paid like it by the Oilers ownership), but he’d been evenly dividing the workload in the Edmonton net with Andy Moog since his rookie year of 1981–82. That was about to change. While rumours continued to circulate in Edmonton’s close hockey community about Grant’s private life, there was no doubting that the Oilers’ local product was only getting better on the ice. Now that his longtime partner Moog was with the Canadian Olympic team, holding out for a trade out of Edmonton, Grant’s starts ballooned. In his first year as the acknowledged No. 1, he zoomed to 75 regular-season and 19 playoff starts in 1987–88. Not only did he step up his workload, he won his only Vezina Trophy as the NHL’s top goaltender that year, and finished second in voting for the Hart Memorial Trophy as league MVP, behind Mario Lemieux and ahead of teammate Wayne Gretzky.
The jump in starts alarmed some who thought it would burn out the five-foot-nine-inch goalie. Could he physically sustain the pace? What about his mental makeup under the increased duty? During the season, Sather grew bored with people asking if Grant was being overworked. “I’m not amazed at all Grant can play that many games,” Sather told the Boston Globe. “I am amazed that people ask the same questions about it. Did you see Larry Bird the other night? He plays all the time. Or how about Ray Bourque? There’s a guy I’m amazed with. He plays 40 minutes a game on defense. Grant Fuhr stands in front of the net for 60 minutes. Glenn Hall and Jacques Plante did the same thing for their entire careers and they didn’t wear masks. Grant is a young guy. Why should he be tired mentally?”
Fuhr’s play certainly didn’t reflect any fatigue. Former roommate Ron Low summed up his protegé for SI: “Grant reads the game as well as any goalie that has ever played. His goals-against average will never be the best. He’ll give up the occasional soft goal. But in the big moment, for the big save, he’s 95 percent unbeatable. Under pressure, there is none finer. He proved in the Canada Cup that he is the finest goaltender in the world.”
Grant then proved his value to the Oilers in more than durability. His critics said he had been the lucky recipient of being on a team with the greatest offence ever. But with Gretzky shelved for 16 games and producing a “pedestrian” 149-point total in 1987–88, Grant’s reliability in goal was needed more than ever. He provided his team with some of his most stellar numbers, posting a career-high 40 wins, a 3.43 GAA (the lowest since his rookie year) and four shutouts—by far the most he’d had in a single season. For the natural athlete who once relied upon his reflexes and unpredictability, there was suddenly some method to his seeming madness between the posts.
Each year you’re trying to add something. I think if you get stale and try and work with only one thing you have, they figure you out at some point. You’ve got to give them different looks, and try and learn something yourself, to try and get better every year. As I got older, obviously I wasn’t getting any quicker, so now you have to get a little bit smarter: able to play angles a little bit better, read the game a little bit better, which will make you look just as quick as you ever were—but it’s more that you have a sense of what’s going on. It’s all trying to look the same while doing different things.
In the 1988 playoffs, the Oilers showed that, like their goalie, they’d been learning from the past few seasons of defensive preaching by co-coach John Muckler. Their offence continued to churn out goals by the bushel, but their back end was now as tight as the best defensive squads in the NHL. Which was a good thing for any team playing in the shooting gallery known as the Smythe Division.
Three of, probably, the top six teams in the league were just in our division. It wasn’t even in our conference; it was just our division. Any time you played Winnipeg, you played Calgary—Vancouver was okay at that time—the hardest part was to get out of your own division. Every year it was us and Calgary right out of the gate. One of us would get either L.A. or Vancouver: somebody got an easy one, and somebody got the battle of Winnipeg every year. With Dale [Hawerchuk] they were always a challenge.
In the first round of the 1988 playoffs, it was the Oilers who had their hands full with Winnipeg, finally prevailing four games to one over the pesky Jets. That brought them another dance with the hated Calgary Flames in Round 2. Over the course of the decade, Calgary GM Cliff Fletcher had assembled a very talented squad at the Saddledome with veterans such as Lanny McDonald and Hakan Loob meshing with the products of the Flames’ deep farm system, Al MacInnis and Theo Fleury. Sharp trades had brought Doug Gilmour and John Tonelli to the Flames as well. With Calgary’s 105 regular-season points good enough for the Presidents’ Trophy, there were whispers that Edmonton might finally have met its match. Calgary had scored more goals (398 to the Oilers’ 363) and had their own proven playoff goalie in Mike Vernon to match Grant.
Someone forgot to tell the Oilers—still keenly feeling the sting of the 1986 Steve Smith goal—that they were through. Led by Grant, who allowed just 11 goals in the four games, they buried the first-place Flames. The beat-down started with a sweep of the first two games on the road at the Saddledome. The back-breaker came after the Flames had blown a two-goal lead in Game 2. A highlight-reel short-handed goal in overtime by Gretzky then ended it as he streaked down the left wing, blasting a laser to the far side over Vernon’s catching glove. Game 3 in Edmonton brought a scare as Joel Otto of the Flames ripped a drive off Grant’s collarbone early in the second period. The entire Northlands crowd hushed as Grant writhed in pain on the ice: Who could withstand such a shot without being badly hurt? Then, like Rod Tidwell in Jerry Maguire, Grant bounced back up on his skates, seemingly as good as new. Pain would not stop No. 31; the Flames were going to have to beat him the conventional way. A five-minute major penalty to Oilers defenceman Marty McSorley was overcome without incident and Calgary’s Game 3 hopes died right there. With revenge for 1986 at hand, Edmonton wasted no time. Game 4 showed the mighty Oilers offence in peak form as they outscored Calgary 6–4. Any Battle of Alberta talk seemed settled as the Flames crawled home, swept out by their acrobatic nemesis from Edmonton.
After drubbing the Detroit Red Wings four games to one in the Conference finals, the Oilers faced their old teammate Moog and the Boston Bruins in a bid for a fourth Stanley Cup in five years. This was the legacy year for Sather’s team, the chance to leap from excellent to great. The final was no contest as the Oilers surrendered just nine goals in the four completed games (one game in Boston was abandoned due to a power failure). The Oilers’ 16–2 record that post-season is still the best winning percentage in the four-round era since 1979–80, and Grant backstopped every minute along the way. At this point he was finally getting help from his defence as the Oilers regularly held opponents to under 25 shots during this run—one in which every facet of the team truly shone, and there seemed to be no evident trace of weakness.
“Nothing at all bothers him,” said Grant’s Victoria teammate Geoff Courtnall, now in Edmonton. “He is so relaxed, yet he is one of the quickest goalies in the league. Some guys get beat on a shot and they let down, get caught on a couple more quick ones. With Grant it’s the exact opposite. He responds to the challenge and plays even better.”
With a fourth Stanley Cup in the bag, the Oilers and their fans prepared for the Hollywood-style wedding of Gretzky and actress Janet Jones in Edmonton on July 16, 1988. National television coverage and a breathless Hollywood paparazzi brought every last sequin on Janet’s $40,000 ensemble to the attention of a waiting world. While Edmonton firemen formed an honour guard on the steps of St. Joseph’s Basilica, the Edmonton Symphony played the transitional music. Celebrities in the church ranged from actor Alan Thicke to Mr. Hockey himself, Gordie Howe. Grant had front row seats for the hockey “wedding of the century.”
Oh yeah, third or fourth row, at the front. It was something. Everybody turned out, dressed to the nines. One of the few times I ever wore a suit in those days, especially in the summer. Gretz never seemed to get bothered by the attention. But we’d been watching Wayne for years, and by that point, nothing really surprised us. Well, I should say the next thing that happened to him that summer surprised us.
Grant was in his customary summer residence on a golf course on August 9, playing in Bob Cole’s tournament in St. John’s, Newfoundland, with teammate Marty McSorley (or a guy Grant thought was still his teammate) when the shocking rumours that Gretzky would no longer be an Oiler were confirmed. “I didn’t know till I called my agent, Mike Barnett, after I’d heard that Gretz had been traded,” recalls McSorley. “And I was saying ‘You can’t tear this team apart, you have to stop this.’ Mike said, ‘Sit down, I think you’re in the trade.’ ”
We were out playing in Bob Cole’s golf tournament. People kept coming up to us, and we were hearing these stories about a trade. Marty thought everybody was kidding him that he’d been traded to Los Angeles with Gretz. I hadn’t heard anything about it. Turns out they’d been talking all summer about it. So that was a little shocking. You knew there were some contract issues and Peter [Pocklington] was having troubles financially. I was having my contract troubles with Glen. But Gretz? No way.
As Garth and Wayne liked to say, “Way.” The deal that shocked Canada was Wayne Gretzky, Marty McSorley, and Mike Krushelnyski to the Los Angeles Kings in exchange for Jimmy Carson, Martin Gelinas, the Kings first-round draft picks in 1989, 1991 and 1993, and $15 million. Almost as surprising to NHL players was the fat new contract Gretzky got after the trade. Kings owner Bruce McNall felt his new star need to be paid like a star and awarded No. 99 $3 million a year for five years. (Gretzky’s agent, Mike Barnett, revealed later that the centre had actually requested a lower salary, concerned the Kings could not then afford the other players to produce a champion. McNall laughed him off.) The Gretzky contract was a tide that would soon raise all salary boats for NHL players. Told for decades by the NHL and their own union leader, Alan Eagleson, that there wasn’t much money in the hockey business, they suddenly discovered that a pot of gold lay in Los Angeles and other major cities. As important as Gretzky was to the popularization of hockey in the Sun Belt, he was equally as important to his fellow players, such as Grant, who would eventually collect millions in salary over the rest of their careers.
That salary tide was bad news for Edmonton, however, where the same business travails that had forced owner Peter Pocklington to make the Gretzky trade now made raises little more than a dream for the remaining Oilers players. Just how tight the Edmonton salary pinch was in 1988 was demonstrated the summer before as Grant’s new agent, Ritch Winter, got into a metaphorical shoving match with Sather over getting market value for his client. Winter was a new breed of agent, not beholden to the Alan Eagleson–imposed regime at the NHL Players’ Association. In exchange for having a free hand to exploit international hockey, Eagleson was running a house union that allowed teams to suppress salaries for top players. In particular, Eagleson did not believe in salary disclosure among players—a practice that had catapulted salaries in other pro sports into the stratosphere. Winter felt the players’ salaries were artificially held down by the lack of free agency in the business, and Fuhr’s case (the best goalie in the NHL making $300,000 a year, far less than other NHL goalies, and with no leverage) was Exhibit A. Winter knew teams such as Detroit would pay more—a lot more—for the best goalie in the game. But Sather, paid to hold the line on a budget imposed by Pocklington, disagreed. Moreover, Sather held the hammer in deciding where Grant would play.
The acrimony from Grant’s contract talks would linger until his departure from the Alberta capital. Meanwhile, the stunned Oilers tried to figure out life without their captain.
At camp the guys rallied around each other and decided they wanted to win again to show it wasn’t just a fluke. Everybody probably pushed a little harder that year. Especially when we knew we’d be facing Gretz during the season.
For Grant, the first season without No. 99 as a teammate would prove his most frustrating yet as a pro. Coming off personal triumph the season before, 1988–89 was a letdown. The year from hell began with Grant missing the start of the season due to a knee injury suffered in training camp. He would barely have time to prepare for the return of Gretzky to Northlands in a Kings uniform on October 19. The mid-week game would be broadcast nationally and attract a huge media swarm. Gretzky himself would receive a four-minute standing ovation from the Edmonton crowd. For Grant, facing his old friend would be a novelty—and a challenge.
If there was one person in the Edmonton Oilers dressing room who could truly appreciate what Wayne Gretzky did for a hockey team, it was Grant Fuhr. From the time of his arrival with the Oilers in 1981 until Gretzky’s departure in 1988, Grant had had to face the greatest scoring machine in NHL history every day in practice and every training camp in scrimmages. Gretzky liked to score goals—and he didn’t spare the feelings of his own goalie in the process.
People say you’re lucky not to have faced him in games all those years. But I used to go up against him in practice every day. He liked to score, and he didn’t like to be embarrassed, even in practice. We had some good battles. We pushed each other to be that much better. I was okay with him being a hero and having the fans cheer him in Edmonton. I understood it had nothing to do with me. But I was not giving him a hat trick to please anyone.
The 8–6 Oilers win featured a vintage Gretzky performance, with chances galore. Grant repelled 31 of the 37 Kings shots thrown at him. An emotional Gretzky didn’t score against Grant—but he did collect two assists, finishing -2 on the night. The perfect homecoming scenario was ruined for Gretzky not by Grant but by the Kings’ goalie Glenn Healy, who stopped just 13 of the 21 shots sent his way.
After the game, Gretzky did his best to deflect any blame for his trade. “I’m still proud to be a Canadian,” he told reporters. “I didn’t desert my country. I moved because I was traded, and that’s where my job is. But I’m Canadian to the core. I hope Canadians understand that.”
For Grant, the showdown win might have been the high-water mark of the regular season. A cervical neck strain sidelined him in January and his .875 save percentage was his worst in seven years. His 3.83 GAA was only slightly above his career average at the time, but it came in front of a more experienced, defensively stout team than the ones he’d played for a few years earlier.
As a team the Oilers had just 84 points in 1988–89, by far their worst winning percentage since 1980–81. In Gretzky’s absence, Jari Kurri stepped up as the overall leading scorer, while Jimmy Carson (obtained in the Gretzky trade) topped the club with 49 goals. Bill Ranford—acquired in the Moog trade—would soon be pushing Grant for the starter’s job after starting 29 games while Grant was hurt or resting. But it would still be No. 31 starting in the Edmonton net for the 1989 playoffs. And as fate would have it, the Oilers drew Gretzky and the Kings in the first round—which meant a few more emotional games in Edmonton for the two teams.
He had played against me just about everyday in practice, so it was fun to want to play against him in games. It was fun just to see, more than anything, how it would go. You take it as a personal challenge. You’d seen everything in practice. You’ve just never seen it live in a game coming at you, where you actually worry about it. It makes it look a little different. Having done it now I can say it’s just as impressive live as it is in practice. He made it look just as easy.
The series started off well enough for the Oilers. They seized a 3–1 series lead with only 11 goals surrendered by Grant—including his second career playoff shutout with a 4–0 win in Game 3. But then, out of nowhere, the vaunted Oilers magic in the clutch disappeared. (Or perhaps it just migrated to the Kings bench.) They’d always found a way to win before, but now that extra gear disappeared in the face of a Gretzky hungry for vindication—for the trade away from Edmonton and for Pocklington’s criticism of the man who’d made the franchise. In part, the capitulation to the Kings was due to Grant losing his game while L.A. goalie Kelly Hrudey simultaneously regained his own mojo. Grant was victimized for several weak goals amongst the 13 that got by him as the Kings took three straight to clinch the series. Game 7 was particularly tough. After the Kings went ahead 5–3 in the third period off a controversial goalie-interference non-call, Fuhr snapped on the officiating crew. He threw his stick into the crowd, earning an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. It was uncharacteristic behaviour for the fun-loving Fuhr of old, but it summed up his rocky first season without Gretzky.
An empty netter sealed the loss, and while the Oilers put on smiles for the handshakes with their old friend, there was a deep sense of disappointment and perhaps even a sense that they were at the end of an era. After having the hockey world by the tail in 1987–88, Grant was now suddenly eliminated early in April. As he sat in a sombre Edmonton dressing room, Grant finally knew how it felt to lose to the man they called the Great One. Seeing their old friend and former inspiration put a dagger in the season was yet another sign that the Oilers of old, the core of the team Grant had come to in 1981, was slowly being taken apart. The frustration of the series would boil over in his contract negotiations with Glen Sather that summer.
You know once Gretz is gone things are starting to dismantle. When they traded Gretz in 1988 and you read the different articles about the money and such in Edmonton, then you kind of get a grasp of it. Coffey was moved out. Gretzky was gone. Andy was gone. Messier was having issues at that time, contract-wise. Part of that was me being young at the time and not knowing the economics of the game. You see other guys on other teams getting bigger contracts—and we’re winning but making nothing like them. So you know at some point you’re moving, too. Even though you don’t want to, at some point you know it’s going to happen.
With no playoff hockey on the agenda, Grant once again took up the offer to play for Team Canada, this time at the World Hockey Championships in Sweden. Getting away from Edmonton and the stinging headlines in the media seemed like a good strategy. Winning a silver medal for Canada was gratifying, but for a man accustomed to Stanley Cup and Canada Cup titles it was no replacement for another championship. And it was no bulwark against the troubles confronting Grant off the ice.
Personal and professional issues came to a head that summer as Grant and Winter continued to pressure the financially challenged Oilers into paying Grant his value as the NHL’s best goalie. As a means of expanding Grant’s income, Winter had come up with a novel plan to have Grant wear the Pepsi-Cola logo on his goal pads in 1989–90. It was a creative idea, but one that faced a huge roadblock. The NHL did not allow (and still does not allow) individual players to promote products on their uniforms. Winter felt that if the Oilers could not afford to pay Grant his market value, they should at least fight to have an exemption made that would allow Fuhr to make up the difference. Winter, who was launching an attempt to unseat Eagleson as the head of the NHLPA, also accused the Oilers of cheating their players by trading Wayne Gretzky so that none of them could earn their projected bonus money for the 1988–89 season. Needless to say, Sather categorically denied the accusation.
No wonder there were rumours that Grant might join Gretzky in Los Angeles that summer (in exchange for $5 million). Kings owner Bruce McNall did not dampen the speculation. “Peter Pocklington and I talk all the time,” he told the Boston Globe. “If the opportunity was there, I’d have to consider it. If Peter Pocklington wants to make that deal, I’m all ears.” Pocklington, who’d already been savaged over the Gretzky deal and was hard for cash, tried to stickhandle. “I have no interest in selling off anybody,” Pocklington was quoted as saying. “Grant Fuhr isn’t worth $5 million.… I never say never about anything, but Wayne Gretzky was once-in-a-lifetime.” To which No. 99 added, “If Oilers owner Peter Pocklington decides to sell Grant Fuhr and Mark Messier, I should think the general manager would have to quit.”
Though the trade rumours floated publicly, much of the personal conflict between Winter and Sather happened behind the scenes. So when Grant and Winter, seated on a golf cart, met the media on June 8, 1989, to announce the netminder’s retirement at age 26, there was genuine shock from the fans and even some of the press. Looking decidedly uncomfortable, Grant said, “If you can’t play this game and have fun and get the respect you deserve then there’s not much reason for going on,” he told the reporters huddled around the cart. “This has been a long time coming, a long time building up.” Saying he’d been belittled from the beginning by the Oilers, Grant suggested he didn’t have the respect of his teammates either, adding that he would rather sell cars at an Edmonton-area dealership than play under licensing restrictions (likely referring to a dealership in Wetaskiwin, Alberta, in which he had invested). Winter and Fuhr claimed that this was a battle for players’ rights; naysayers, however, suggested that Winter had actually orchestrated the entire drama to force a renegotiation on Fuhr’s long-term contract.
The news that the best goalie in the league was packing it in at 26 sent shock waves through the NHL. As power plays go, this was an enormous gamble by a player in the prime of his career—especially one who had a promising young backup waiting to take over. But the holdout strategy had worked for Grant’s teammates Moog and Paul Coffey, who had both engineered deals out of Edmonton. Winter and Sather were already arguing over the contract for another of Winter’s clients, Esa Tikkanen, and Winter was gambling that the retirement threat would force Sather to trade Grant to Detroit, where he would be able to boost his pay. In practice, however, Edmonton held all the cards under the owner-friendly collective bargaining agreement negotiated by Eagleson for the NHLPA. Sather could sit tight and wait until Fuhr and Winter blinked. To ratchet up the pressure, Sather announced he was cutting off talks with Winter, making the agent himself an issue in the negotiation.
On June 8, 1989, Fuhr presented signed retirement papers to Sather, which, if filed with the NHL, would force Furh to sit for the 1989–90 season. Convinced the retirement was nothing more than a negotiating ploy, Sather held onto the papers until training camp to see if Fuhr was serious about quitting. Sather growled at the implications of poor treatment from the team. “Grant Fuhr has been treated with kid gloves from Day 1,” he told reporters. “If Grant wants to retire, the world isn’t going to stop because he’s not here. If Grant wants to quit, I’ll sign Pete Peeters. He’s a free agent without compensation.” Ironically, just five days after Grant stirred up his hornet’s nest with his retirement tactic, Sather stepped down as Oilers head coach, handing the reins full-time to Muckler, who’d been operating as a de facto head coach for awhile.
As media criticism of Winter mounted, and as Grant acknowledged he really didn’t want to retire, the situation was finally resolved in a two-hour meeting between Fuhr and Sather on August 24, 1989. Following that meeting, Fuhr announced he was not going to retire and would report to Edmonton’s training camp as scheduled.
I don’t know if I was searching for something or maybe just a little bit lost in space. Ritch [Winter] had some great ideas. I liked the advertising on the pads; I thought that was actually a really good idea. But the holdout wasn’t going to get anything accomplished. You just get the fans on you, which is never good. Nothing ever gets accomplished out of it.
Yeah, I got a new deal, but it was the same deal I would have gotten anyhow. And now I’d pissed everybody off to get the same deal.
Grant willingly walked away from the Pepsi deal, but said he was surprised to find out that the NHL, rather than the Oilers, was responsible for his not being allowed to put the logo on his pads. Winter still argued that the NHL did not have the right to ban the Pepsi pads, but his client had already lost interest in the arrangement. Fuhr would drop Winter as his agent on September 27, saying he was uncomfortable with Winter’s negotiating tactics and that Winter had not always acted in his best interest.
Yeah, he did a lot that was good for me. But Ritch just had a different style than the one I have. I don’t need to rock the boat and cause all sorts of grief and have people upset. I liked being in Edmonton; I was happy being in Edmonton. I didn’t need to turn that into a disaster. Unfortunately, I think Ritch was trying to change the Players’ Association at my expense. I happened to be in the middle of all that shrapnel. Bad choice on my part maybe. But so be it; it happened.
The summer’s retirement drama was a foreshadowing of more serious issues to come in Grant’s life. In September of ’89, he and his wife, Corrine, split. On top of this came an emergency appendectomy, which caused Grant to miss the start of the season. When Grant finally did return, he was not sharp. While he started 15 of the next 21 games, Ranford was the hotter goalie. Worse, in a 3–3 tie with St. Louis on December 19, Grant aggravated a shoulder injury that had previously required surgery—with a recovery time estimated at over two months.
The Oilers were in a bind during Grant’s rehabilitation period, uncertain that the impressive young Bill Ranford could carry a full load in the playoffs. Indirectly, the team suggested that it would be helpful if their star goalie could find his way back from rehab in time for the end of the season. So Grant returned early on March 3, 1990, against Philadelphia. Looking like the Fuhr of old, he out-duelled longtime rival Ron Hextall. Grant stopped 35 of 38 shots in a 5–3 win that sparked hope the old Grant Fuhr was back on the case. But just three games later, he reinjured the same shoulder. This time there was no doubt: surgery was necessary. He was done for the season. A disappointing 9–7–3 record, 3.89 GAA and mediocre .868 save percentage were the final insults on a year gone bad.
With Eldon “Pokey” Reddick—another African-Canadian goalie—occupying the backup role, Ranford took over the Oilers’ No. 1 job. After a slow start that saw Edmonton down 3–1 in their opening series with Winnipeg, Ranford energized the Oilers. First he helped the Oilers overcome the 3–1 deficit, beating the Jets in seven games. Then came a revenge sweep of Gretzky’s Kings to take the Smythe Division. As Ranford’s momentum built, the Oilers next toppled the Chicago Blackhawks in six games to win the Campbell Conference.
Once again the Oilers found themselves back in a Stanley Cup Final, this time powered by Mark Messier and Bill Ranford—not Wayne Gretzky and Grant Fuhr. They were also helped by the addition of young forwards Adam Graves and Joe Murphy, obtained from Detroit for a disgruntled Jimmy Carson. Alongside Martin Gelinas, who’d come in the Gretzky deal, they formed a Kid Line that sparked the veteran core of the team.
Shining his brightest in the five-game Cup Finals against Boston, Ranford allowed only eight goals in a little under 18 periods of hockey. It was a performance befitting Grant Fuhr—but Ranford, the understudy, did Grant one better by taking home the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP to boot. Grant was a pleased teammate, winning a fifth Stanley Cup ring, but being in street clothes for what turned out to be his final Stanley Cup celebration took the shine off the joyous occasion. As he headed into the summer, Grant was no longer the unquestioned name on the goaltending marquee in Edmonton. He would have to win back his job or move somewhere he could play—and be paid—as a No. 1 goalie.