Over a decade has passed since a Western Hockey League club hoisted the Memorial Cup. We look back at the 2014 Edmonton Oil Kings.
The modern major junior landscape has seen its fair share of powerhouses, but for the Western Hockey League, the Memorial Cup has become an elusive prize.
No WHL team has won the Memorial Cup since 2014, when the Edmonton Oil Kings captured the league prize.
The Oil Kings were driven by the dominant duo of Henrik Samuelsson and Edgars Kulda, who terrorized the opposition throughout the tournament. Samuelsson finished with a tournament lead of eight points, while Kulda notched seven points, winning the Memorial Cup MVP.
Edmonton battled through a grueling triple-overtime semifinal against Val-d'Or before toppling the powerhouse Guelph Storm in the final.
The forward group featured future NHLers like Curtis Lazar, who brought unparalleled leadership and a 200-foot game, and the bruising Mitch Moroz, who ensured the Oil Kings were never outmuscled in the dirty areas.
Anchoring the defence was captain Griffin Reinhart, who was a first-round New York Islanders prospect at the time. Reinhart tallied three points in the Memorial Cup.
You cannot win a Memorial Cup without elite goaltending, and Edmonton possessed the ultimate equalizer in Tristan Jarry. Before he was backstopping the Oil Kings in London, Jarry put together one of the most dominant regular seasons in recent WHL history.
Logging a massive 63 games, Jarry posted a suffocating 2.24 Goals Against Average and a .914 Save Percentage, racking up an astonishing 44 wins and eight shutouts.
Over a decade later, the 2014 Edmonton Oil Kings remain the gold standard for WHL roster construction. They were heavy, highly skilled, and perfectly insulated from the net out.
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