Oilersnation is reviving the Top 100 Edmonton Oilers of All Time list, a project originally created by the late Robin Brownlee in 2015. Bill Ranford comes in at No. 16 on our updated 2025 list. He was ranked No. 11 on Brownlee’s original list.

It’s become the stuff of legend how Bill Ranford started the 1990 playoffs poorly, lambasted in the media and struggling with keeping pucks out of the Edmonton Oilers net, to then turn on a dime and provide perhaps the greatest stretch of Oilers goaltending in franchise history.

Ranford won the Conn Smythe Trophy in 1990 and the Oilers their fifth Stanley Cup in seven years, but it certainly didn’t seem like that was going to be the story after starting their first-round series against the Winnipeg Jets down 2-0 and 3-1. He was not Grant Fuhr — he just needed to be Billy Ranford, as captain Mark Messier allegedly said, as their backs were shoved against the wall. 

And he produced, going 15-3 down the stretch, sneaking past the Jets in seven, sweeping Gretzky’s LA Kings (who shockingly upset the defending champion Calgary Flames, and had eliminated the Oilers the year before) and taking down the Norris Division’s Chicago Blackhawks in six games.  

Game 1 of the Final wouldn’t end. It went on and on…and on. Ranford would make 50 saves in the triple overtime classic, ended by Petr Klima and his late-night heroics, and the Oilers would make quick work of Boston again, as they had in 1988. Ranford was able to keep the Oilers afloat in those stretches of the game they were hemmed in and leaking chances, providing a flair for the dramatic with his two-pad stacks and kick saves. 

He’d likely influence a generation of Edmonton kids playing road hockey or........

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