Oilersnation is reviving the Top 100 Edmonton Oilers of All Time list, a project originally created by the late Robin Brownlee in 2015. Chris Pronger comes in at No. 17 on our updated 2025 list. He was ranked No. 15 on Brownlee’s original list.

Let’s get through this quickly so we can carry on with the list. 

Look, there was going to be a point on this Top 100 countdown of where to slot Chris Pronger. Brownlee had him 15. We have him 17. For a player who suited up just one season with the Oilers to be ranked that high is a testament to how much of a game-changer Chris Pronger was. 

In terms of the most talented, well-rounded defencemen to ever play for the team, it’s him and Paul Coffey. For the total package that Pronger brought to the game, you can argue that he’s the best pure defenceman the Oilers have ever had — even if for just one season. 

But it can never just be that simple for ol’ Prongs, remembered for what happened off the ice, remembered for his agent’s trade request hours after Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final, and remembered for never letting us forget.  

He has an impeccable sense of timing. This week alone, he alluded to being vilified in Edmonton for requesting a trade, omitting crucial details as to why and how early into his brand new contract he wanted out. Ya know, the relevant stuff in this case. It was all the same song and dance, the woe-is-me act implicit in his book tour from the spring, the same one where he counsels on personal ownership and life principles. 

He must’ve known his place in the Top 100 was coming. Twenty years later, old wounds have been opened, and re-opened, and the Oilers fan has been bled dry from this story. 

Yet the list must go on…

Notable

The Hartford Whalers selected Pronger second overall behind Alexandre Daigle in the 1993 NHL Draft, but after two seasons in the northeast, Pronger looked like the bust and Daigle the viable future star. 

Mix in a trade for St. Louis Blues fan favourite Brendan Shanahan, and the........

© Oilers Nation