Top 100 Oilers: No. 58 — Cam Talbot

Oilersnation is reviving the Top 100 Edmonton Oilers of All Time list, a project originally created by the late Robin Brownlee in 2015. Cam Talbot comes in at No. 58 on our updated 2025 list. He was not ranked on Brownlee’s original list.

Cam Talbot was the best Edmonton Oilers goalie of the 2010s and the best the franchise had since Dwayne Roloson.

Granted, there isn’t a murderer’s row of choices, but the 2016-17 season of Talbot alone places him amongst the best Edmonton Oilers goalies of all-time, as evidenced by being our 58th greatest Edmonton Oiler of all-time.

Now, Talbot had his ups and downs, as did the team in the Peter Chiarelli era, but make no mistake – the ability for an Oilers goaltender to play an NHL-leading 72 games in a single season, and win a franchise record 42 games in 2016-17, was unforeseen and simply awesome.

The Oilers got the best version of Cam Talbot there’s ever been, and in the spring of 2017, he was a true reason to have hope in a long-forsaken organization.

Notable

There was no NHL path laid out for Talbot. He played Junior A hockey in Hamilton and went undrafted, going to the University of Alabama-Huntsville of the NCAA where he was named All-College Hockey America Second Team and MVP in the 2010 CHA tournament.

His third college season was standout, and he got a chance to play with the Hartford Wolf Pack of the American Hockey League, after signing a pro contract with the New York Rangers.

He grinded in the AHL to eventually earn a backup role with the Rangers. That turned into a starting job after a bizarre neck injury took Henrik Lundqvist out of action. Talbot performed extremely well, posting a .926 save percentage and........

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