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Anyone who saw Ryan Smyth bleed at some point during his National Hockey League career was likely surprised by the colour.

Because it really should have been blue and orange.

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Though he made a tearful, trade-deadline exit to the New York Islanders, followed by free-agent stops in Colorado and Los Angeles, he was mostly and remains today an Oiler through and through.

It makes perfect sense then that he should be hired once again by the team that drafted him sixth overall in June 1994, signed him shortly thereafter, developed him over several years and employed him through 971 regular-season games and another 68 in the playoffs. Only current Oilers Entertainment Group vice-chair Kevin Lowe, with 1,209 regular-season and playoff games on the blue-line, played more for Edmonton than did No. 94.

Photo by Ed Kaiser / Edmonton Journal

Smyth, now 40 and retired for two years, has taken a very part-time position as a conditioning coach with the Oilers. There was no official announcement from the team, and the job will be better defined if and when he commits more time to it, but he has quietly been doing some on-ice work with injured players while the rest of the squad has been on road trips this season.