The Edmonton Oilers’ 1980s dynasty crumbled at the turn of the decade.

With Wayne Gretzky gone, the Oilers managed to win the 1990 Stanley Cup with Mark Messier as the captain, but just a few seasons later, members of the dynasty were traded piece by piece.

By the end of the 1992-93 season, no key member of the Oilers dynasty finished the season on the team. In turn, the Oilers finished the season with 60 points, the fifth-fewest in the National Hockey League.

Picking seventh in the 1993 draft, the Oilers selected Jason Arnott, kick-starting a trade tree that lasted two and a half decades with three notable branches. One merged with the Mark Messier trade tree, and another one ended disappointingly.

As for the other branch, that resulted in Aleš Hemský and ended in 2019. We’ll look at this branch in this article, but let’s first begin with some context.

Jason Arnott and Bill Guerin’s careers

Arnott immediately broke into the NHL, scoring 33 goals and 68 points in 1993-94, finishing as the runner-up for the Calder Trophy. The following season, the lockout shortened 1994-95, the right-shot forward scored 15 goals and 37 points in 37 games.

He was productive for the next two seasons as well, but started slow in 1997-98. After scoring just five goals and 18 points in 35 games, the Oilers sent him and Bryan Muir to the New Jersey Devils for Bill Guerin and Valeri Zelepukin.

Arnott went on to have a productive career, winning the Stanley Cup with the Devils in 1999-2000, playing for the Stars, Nashville Predators, New Jersey Devils, Washington Capitals, and St. Louis Blues in the second half of his career. In the end, he finished with 417 goals and 938 points in 1,244 games.

Zelepukin is a non-factor in this trade tree, but Guerin was an important Oilers player in the late 1990s and early........

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