The Day After 38.0: Oilers win ninth in a row, Connor McDavid ties Glenn Anderson on team scoring list, and more
By Cam Lewis
6 months agoIt looked for a little while that the winning streak was again going to come up just short.
Detroit Red Wings goaltender Alex Lyon was turning everything aside and Andrew Copp finally opened the scoring a few minutes into the third period with a wrist shot from the high slot that made its way past Calvin Pickard.
The Oilers had an eight-game winning streak earlier this season that started with a Thanksgiving matinee in Washington and ended with a 7-4 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning that featured a third-period implosion. They were just one win shy of matching a team record with nine consecutive wins but ran out of steam.
That wasn’t the case on Thursday in Detroit. On Edmonton’s 37th shot of the game, Connor McDavid finally got a puck past Lyon to knot the score at 1-1. It was the 906th point of McDavid’s career, putting him into a tie with Hall of Famer Glenn Anderson for fourth on the team’s all-time scoring list, behind only Wayne Gretzky (1,669), Jari Kurri (1,043), and Mark Messier (1,034).
The Wings were able to tie the game at 2-2 a few minutes before the end of the third frame to force overtime but Darnell Nurse buried the winner to seal Edmonton’s ninth win in a row. It’s the third time in team history they’ve reached a winning streak this long, with two instances coming in the regular season (2000-01, 2022-23) and one in the playoffs (1984-85).
With eight- and nine-game winning streaks in a matter of under two months, the Oilers have erased the 2-9-1 hole they dug for themselves with their poor start to the season. They now sit tied for seventh in the Western Conference standings, just three points back of the L.A. Kings for the third spot in the Pacific Division.
THE DAY AFTER IS PRESENTED BY BETWAY
What they said…
Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch on the winning streak…
“It’s very surprising, considering how many good teams there were, especially in the ’80s and Stanley Cup winners. I’m shocked they didn’t have a run longer than nine games. That we’re a part of it feels good, but where we are in the standings is much more important than winning streaks. We just need to pile up the wins.”
Defenceman Darnell Nurse on the team coming back to earn the win…
“Their goaltender played really well, and it’s a tough team to play against, so to come in here in this building and win, it’s a good sign for our group. There was a lot of persistence to our game. We weren’t forcing it, we kind of just stuck with it. And even when things didn’t seem to go our way in moments, we didn’t get down on ourselves. We just kept playing.”“We came into this season with a lot of confidence, and things didn’t go our way off the hop. We could have easily let it continue to snowball, but we found a way to dig ourselves out of it.”
Members of the Red Wings talk about facing the Oilers…
“It’s interesting to play a game against a team like that, because it lets you see how high the bar is set,” goaltender Alex Lyon said. “We knew this was going to be a good test, and it is a huge point.”“As great as that play was [on the game-tying goal], McDavid’s hockey IQ was just as impressive,” Red Wings head coach Derek Lalonde said. “He had to have the patience and poise to not touch the puck until (Leon) Draisaitl tagged up. I don’t know how many players could have thought that through.”
A note on a legend…
It’s a shame that we aren’t going to be able to read something from Robin Brownlee about the win on Thursday, an article that would be loaded with funny quips and interesting anecdotes that add significance beyond what just happened. His voice has been on the website since the dawn of time and not having it anymore is a huge loss.
Brownlee was among the first writers to be brought on board here and he played a considerable role in making Oilersnation what it is now, as he gave the site a legitimacy and clout that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. Among the most exciting things when I was hired as a university student back in 2015 was having my work published alongside somebody like Brownlee, a name I had grown up seeing in the newspaper.
Do yourself a favour this weekend and go back and read some of the excellent work produced by Brownlee over the years. A particular favourite of mine is his justification for having Igor Ulanov at No. 93 in the All-Time Oilers Countdown that he wrote in the summer of 2015. Articles like this are what it’s all about.
Rest easy, big man. Thank you for paving the way, you won’t be forgotten around here.
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