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January 15, 1984 - The Oilers make their only trip to New Jersey during the 1983/84 season, winning by a score of 5-4. Wayne Gretzky leads the way for the Oilers with three points, all assists, and Willy Lindstrom scores a pair of goals for the visiting team. This was a Sunday night game between to teams in different conferences at opposite ends of the league's standings, it was a game that wouldn't be noteworthy in anyway if it wasn't the Oilers first visit since Gretzky referred to the Devils as a "Mickey Mouse organization."
Well, it’s time they got their act together. They’re ruining the whole league. "They had better stop running a Mickey Mouse organization and put somebody on the ice.
To welcome Gretzky to New Jersey was a crowd of 19,023, slightly larger than the Devils were used to drawing. And as you might expect they weren't exactly thrilled with what Gretzky had said about their team a couple months earlier, and did everything they could to make sure that he knew it. On this night they couldn't cheer on the Devils to victory, or slow do much to slow down Gretzky, but 32 years later they probably look at the Oilers' situation and smile just a little.
