Connor McDavid season-opening point streak Oilers win over Rangers, Digi Mart USA News (Edmonton): Connor McDavid scored a goal to extend his season-opening point streak to 19 games, helping the Edmonton Oilers to a 3-1 win against the New York Rangers at Rogers Place on Monday.
McDavid became the fourth player in NHL history with a season-opening point streak of at least 19 games, and the first since Dany Heatley, who had a 22-game streak from Oct. 5 to Nov. 29, 2005. The others were Wayne Gretzky, who did it three times, with his longest being 51 games from Oct. 5, 1983 to Jan. 27, 1984, and Mats Sundin, who had a 30-game streak from Oct. 8 to Dec. 10, 1992.
McDavid has 48 points (11 goals, 37 assists) during the point streak.
McDavid put the Oilers up 1-0 at 6:42 of the first period. New York goalie Dylan Garand tried to play the puck behind his net, but his attempted pass bounced off the back of the cage, and McDavid pounced on it for an easy goal at the right post.
Edmonton coach Mike Babcock said it was an interesting game in which the team did a lot of good things. “What I like the best is this: we have to find a way to win every night.
That’s our job,” he said. “We scored enough goals, then we checked.
They’ve got good players and they came at us. They didn’t play their fourth line much and neither did we.”
Babcock said the Oilers’ players had good crowbars and won the 50-50 battles in the third period, with Leon Draisaitl a big part of that.
Draisaitl scored twice for the second straight game for the Oilers (13-3-3), who have won two of their past three games. Devon Levi made 28 saves.
Draisaitl credited Levi, who improved to 8-1-0 this season, for the win. “I don’t think we were terrible, probably not our best, but he made the right saves at the right time,” Draisaitl said.
“He’s been incredible for us.”
Jaroslav Chmelar scored the lone goal for the Rangers (10-8-1), who had won three in a row. Garand made 17 saves.
New York coach Mike Sullivan said his team generated a lot of scoring chances, including four or five 2-on-1 opportunities, but struggled to finish. “Give their goalie credit, he made some big saves,” Sullivan said.
He added that the Rangers did a good job limiting Edmonton’s opportunities against McDavid and Draisaitl, who he called two of the very best players in the game.
Draisaitl made it 2-0 at 2:59 of the second period. After Vasily Podkolzin mishandled a slap-pass to the slot from Mattias Ekholm, Draisaitl picked up the bouncing puck and put a wrist shot through the legs of Garand.
The Rangers challenged for goaltender interference, but the goal was upheld after a video review.
New York captain J.T. Miller said the goals against were “kind of fluky” and that the Rangers deserved a better result.
“We played to our identity. It’s a hard building to come in and play in,” he said.
“The penalty kill did a good job, we need to bear down and score some goals.”
Chmelar cut the deficit to 2-1 while short-handed at 5:05 of the second period. Shortly after New York killed the first penalty of a 5-on-3, Mika Zibanejad collected a loose puck and sent a stretch pass up to Chmelar, who skated into the offensive zone and buried a wrist shot glove side on Levi from the right circle.
The Rangers pulled Garand for a 6-on-4 advantage with 1:27 remaining in the third period after Edmonton defenseman Ryan Shea was penalized for tripping Alexis Lafreniere.
Draisaitl scored a short-handed empty-net goal from the Oilers’ defensive zone at 18:47 for the 3-1 final. Levi credited McDavid for winning a key battle at the end and Draisaitl for the empty-net finish.
McDavid became the fourth player in NHL history with 48 or more points before his 20th game in a season, joining Mario Lemieux, Wayne Gretzky and Joe Malone. McDavid’s 18-game assist streak ended, which was tied with Adam Oates for the second-longest in NHL history.
Draisaitl has six goals during a four-game goal streak and 12 points during a six-game point streak. Zibanejad recorded his 36th career short-handed point, passing Mikael Backlund for the fourth-most by a Swedish player in NHL history.
