Connor McDavid reached the 100-point mark for the season with one goal and three assists while leading the host Edmonton Oilers to a 4-3 victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday.
Leon Draisaitl scored twice and Jesse Puljujarvi also tallied in the win. Goaltender Mike Smith made 22 saves for the Oilers (33-18-2, 68 points), who are locked into second place in the North Division.
Draisaitl’s goals put him over the 500-point plateau for his career, in 475 games, but McDavid’s performance caps a season for the ages.
McDavid becomes the first and likely only player in the league this season to reach 100 points, and needed only 53 games to reach it — a level of production that rivals the likes of Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux in their prime. He’s the first player in 25 years to net 100 points in 53 or fewer games and ninth in league history.
McDavid, whose team has three games remaining in the regular season, has a 21-point edge on Draisaitl in the league’s scoring race. He has reached 100 or more points in four of the last five seasons and has netted four or more points in seven games this season.
J.T. Miller, Travis Boyd and Tyler Graovac scored for the Canucks (20-26-3, 43 points), who must win their final seven games and have the Montreal Canadiens lose their final two games to make the playoffs. Goalie Thatcher Demko stopped 30 shots in the loss — his team’s seventh in eight games.
McDavid, who went into the game with 96 points, has downplayed the importance of reaching 100 points in the truncated season, but he appeared on a mission from the drop of the puck. He opened the scoring 45 seconds into the clash with a blistering shot from the right faceoff dot.
McDavid earned his first assist of the night when he set up Puljujarvi’s goal at 6:53 in what became a wild second period.
After Miller put the Canucks on the board with a breakaway tally at 9:12 of the frame and Boyd’s goal a couple of minutes later made it a 2-2 game, McDavid had a hand in a three-way passing play that ended with Draisaitl’s one-timer for his milestone point.
Graovac again tied the game when he gained the puck in the slot during a rush and ripped a top-corner shot past Smith, but McDavid set up Draisaitl’s 30th goal of the season — another one-timer on the power-play — with 39.8 seconds remaining in the second period.
–Field Level Media