With his booming slapshot and imposing frame, Sheldon Souray was one heck of a hockey player in his day. Unfortunately, he was far from his best — on and off the ice — during his time with the Edmonton Oilers.
Souray, an Elk Point, Alberta native, was the most recent guest on former NHLer John Scott’s podcast Dropping the Gloves, where he discussed the ups and downs of his 14-season career. And while the 47-year-old had plenty of kind words about his time with the New Jersey Devils and Montreal Canadiens, the same could not be said about the Oilers organization.
Things started out on a good note for Souray when he chose to sign a five-year, $27 million deal with Edmonton in 2007 despite getting higher offers from two other teams. One factor that led him back to Alberta was being closer to his parents, who were ecstatic upon hearing the news.
“They were really excited. To see me wearing an Oilers jersey was… important to them,” Souray said. “I was actually pretty excited. They [the Oilers] just lost in the finals the year before. They’d just lost Chris Pronger. They were looking to fill a couple holes.”
Another reason he chose the Oilers was that they didn’t require the recently injured player to go through a physical examination. That backfired when former Edmonton GM Craig MacTavish apparently berated Souray in front of teammates for not being able to train.
“MacTavish walks in… he goes, ‘Are you effing kidding me? You’re not going to be ready for training camp? You’re just gonna sit back and your big contract?'” Souray explained. “He kind of gave me that in front of all these guys. I was hot for about a week.”
Souray, who says he respects MacTavish today, believes that the bad encounter “kind of explains the organization a little bit.”
He also claimed that he was met with trepidation when he suggested management make additions to the rink. The blueliner proposed a wives’ lounge and parking modifications but was “told to shut up and quit being a silver spooner.”
The final straw for Souray, though, occurred after he returned to play too early while recovering from surgery and developed a staph infection in his hand. Facing a potential limb amputation, one of the coaches came to visit him in the hospital, where things escalated beyond the point of repair.
“The starting coach comes in. He said, ‘They think that you’re milking an injury because you don’t want to play for the Oilers again,'” Souray explained. “So I picked up the phone… I’m on all these painkillers, these antibiotics, I’m sitting in the hospital. I left Kevin Lowe and Darryl Katz a message. I wasn’t happy.”
At the end of that season, tension between the 6-foot-4 player and management nearly escalated to a physical level.
“My year-end interview, I tried to fight Steve Tambellini, who was our GM at the time,” Souray said. “We had a tough one. I kind of said, ‘Hey, it’s probably best for me to move on.'”
Souray wasn’t invited to training camp and was sent down to play with the Hershey Bears in the AHL before being bought out by the team.
“It was the most challenging year, probably, of my life, professionally for sure,” he revealed. “They ended up buying me out that last year. It was just good riddance. I’d never talked to anybody again from that organization.”
With the bad blood behind him, Souray says he’s fond of the current front office — aside from Katz, of course.
“It really restored a lot of faith back in the Oilers. The Oilers are in good hands,” he said. “They got an owner who’s an idiot, but they have good people in place.”
After the 2012-2013 season, Souray retired from the NHL. Over 758 games with five different teams, the defenceman logged an even 300 points.
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