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Top 100 Oilers: No. 59 — Adam Larsson

8 3
saturday
Oilersnation is reviving the Top 100 Edmonton Oilers of All Time list, a project originally created by the late Robin Brownlee in 2015. Adam Larsson comes in at No. 59 on our updated 2025 list. He was not ranked on Brownlee’s original list.

The infamous Taylor Hall-Adam Larsson trade was one of the first Remember-where-you-were when-you-heard-the-news type of deals I can recall. Do you remember where you were when you heard the news in 2016?

I was walking to work that afternoon at my Dad’s shop when he texted me:

“Hall got traded.”

“What?! For who?”

“Larsson.”

Oh, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, that’s a good trade! No, apparently not. Another different Larsson was the newest Edmonton Oiler I discovered when I arrived at work and heard 630 CHED.

As a big of a moment that was, the trade doesn’t have the same gusto all these years later, especially since Larsson is long gone.

The 24-year-old (at the time) became a productive and useful defenceman for the Oilers, particularly in the 2016-17 playoffs. The next year, Taylor Hall won the Hart Trophy in 2018. However, injuries, inconsistency, and Larsson’s eventual departure, makes this trade more footnote than narrative these years later.

For as mad as many Oilers fans were that they didn’t get more for Taylor Hall, Larsson provided quality play for his five seasons in the orange and blue, and we were just as upset that he chose Seattle over Edmonton in free agency.

Larsson was a top prospect in the 2011 NHL Draft, selected fourth overall by the New Jersey Devils after Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Gabriel Landeskog, and Jonathan Huberdeau.

He made a quick jump to North America and played 65 games in 2011-12 and scored 18 points, but the next few seasons saw him split time between New Jersey and their AHL affiliate the Albany Devils.

His game began to click in 2014-15, sticking in the NHL for 64 games, and also providing what would be his second-highest point total in a season with 24.

Then the trade happened June 29, 2016. Like the Tristan Jarry trade from Pittsburgh, the league’s attention whiplashed in the span of an hour, as PK Subban was also dealt from Montreal to Nashville for Shea Weber, and Steven Stamkos avoided free agency and........

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