EDMONTON — On a workforce stuffed with high-end Heinekens, Kevin Lowe was an ice-cold Canadian. Sincere, reliable, and if you actually wanted him, he was awfully good.
“With Kevin,” started Wayne Gretzky, “it was, ‘Inform me what you need me to do to contribute to the hockey membership, and that’s what I’m going to do.’ And he by no means swayed from that.”
Per week earlier than Lowe is inducted into the Hockey Corridor of Fame, and because the Oilers increase his No. 4 to the rafters earlier than Friday’s recreation towards the New York Rangers, we’d ask the query: Who was this stay-at-home defender, a strong-boned product of Lowe’s dairy in Lachute, Quebec, and the conscience of a firewagon group that dearly wanted somebody to remain at house from time to time?
Properly, you would get a reasonably good image of how nicely most of the superstars on these Edmonton groups had performed simply by perusing a rating sheet after the sport. With Lowe, nonetheless, they simply didn’t monitor all of the issues he delivered to the desk.
Nonetheless don’t, actually.
“You recognize, it was all about profitable,” stated Lowe, pleased with the above description. “So what did I do to assist the workforce win? Kill penalties. Shut some strains down from time to time. Play the final a part of the sport, ends of the durations. Make a giant hit when wanted. Although I didn’t rating a lot, I’d bounce up within the play, simply to attempt to change issues up.
“Regardless of the recreation wanted, and whether or not I may do it or not, I’d be serious about it. And when the ship was in cruise, you saved all the pieces in stability. Maintain the fellows who have been up from the minors, get out in the neighborhood and do good issues for the group. The whole lot to maintain issues nearly as good round right here as doable.”
Lowe knew a factor or two about profitable, to make sure, accumulating 5 Stanley Cups in Edmonton and one other with the Rangers. As his No. 4 joins the pantheon of unimaginable gamers whose banners already hold in Edmonton, Lowe’s position on these dynasty Oilers golf equipment is crystalized.
They didn’t want extra scoring, with Gretzky, Mark Messier, Paul Coffey, Jari Kurri and Glenn Anderson. That they had Grant Fuhr, who so spectacularly saved pucks out of the Oilers nets, and Dave Semenko, the hardest fighter within the NHL for a lot of that point.
So, Lowe turned all the pieces else.
“He did all of the soiled jobs,” stated present Oilers head coach Dave Tippett, who performed towards Lowe and people Oilers groups. “There are gamers who needed to kill penalties, gamers who needed to be good defenders, and to me Kevin was the last word workforce participant in that group.
“I requested an outdated GM years in the past, why he had paid a checker that a lot cash,” Tippett recalled. “And the GM, he stated to me, ‘As a result of guys like that, they make you win.’ You’ve obtained to have good gamers, however you’ve obtained to have gamers who play within the trenches, who mean you can win.
“Kevin was a participant who made groups win.”
For those who have been trailing 3-2 late in a recreation, maybe you would discover a defencemen to play forward of Lowe.
For those who have been main, nobody performed forward of No. 4.
And sturdy? Within the 134-season span that Lowe performed for the Oilers — from 1979-92 — solely two defencemen who performed greater than Lowe’s 966 video games: Gordie Roberts (973) and Brad McCrimmon (969).
“I keep in mind one recreation,” Craig MacTavish advised me just a few years again for my guide, The Battle of Alberta. “We’d misplaced in Calgary, after which we got here again right here the subsequent night time and we had a brawl as quickly because the puck hit the ice. Thirty seconds into the sport, Kevin and I have been sitting there within the dressing room, kicked out of the sport after moving into a few secondary altercations. I keep in mind Kevin saying, ‘Boy, have been you and I ever on the identical wave size.’ Thirty seconds in, and we have been performed.”
On that night time, a combat was required. On one other, one thing else.
“Yeah, you’re good,” he as soon as stated of his Oilers. “However you don’t win simply since you’re good. You’ve obtained to essentially need to win, and to take the time. As a result of it hurts.”
There have been Stanley Cups, and there was 1986, when the Calgary Flames interrupted the dynasty with a seventh recreation win at Northlands Coliseum.
“We obtained sloppy. We have been slightly extra egocentric in our play, and fewer dedicated to the general workforce recreation. That was the distinction,” Lowe stated. “Their tenacity was attending to us, and we weren’t as disciplined in reacting to it. We weren’t capable of play with the lead sufficient to essentially get our swagger going.
“That they had closed the hole and we wanted to be much more disciplined than we ever had been, and we weren’t in that collection. We buckled down in ’87 and ’88 once more.”
Lowe’s induction and jersey retirement are all in honour of his time as a participant. And though he GM’ed the final Oilers workforce to make a Stanley Cup Remaining in 2006, some younger Oilers followers consider Lowe because the architect of the Decade of Darkness, a 10-year span wherein the Oilers by no means made the postseason.
Lowe isn’t getting in as a builder, however quite as a participant upon whom stability was constructed. His presence allowed the Gretzkys and Coffeys to entertain us to the diploma they did, understanding that when issues obtained actual and it was time to hunker down and win a interval, a shift, or kill a penalty, there was a man on the workforce that you would lean on.
“Children develop up, and you’ve got this imaginative and prescient of the Crosbys, Lemieuxs, Messiers and Gordie Howes. However these are few and much between,” Gretzky stated. “However when individuals who weren’t tremendous overly gifted get in there due to profitable and onerous work, it motivates younger youngsters to say that they need to play within the NHL sometime, and make the Corridor of Fame too.
“It’s not only a Corridor of Fame for guys who get lots of factors. The Corridor of Fame is about profitable, and that’s what makes it particular. That youngsters can say, ‘I’m no Bobby Orr. However possibly I may be that Kevin Lowe, and compete and contribute.’”
As for Lowe, he nonetheless can’t consider they’re going to let him into the Corridor with out shopping for a ticket, or that he’ll search for till his final Oilers recreation and see his identify and quantity up there subsequent to so many really nice gamers.
“I used to be blessed to be solid on this state of affairs,” he admitted. “What number of days into our first coaching camp was it when Gretz skated up and stated, ‘Hey, how about you and I get an condo collectively?’
“And that stuff by no means ended. It simply by no means ended.”
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