The Day After 72.0: Oilers take care of business against Coyotes, extend winning streak to five games
By Cam Lewis
2 months agoTalk about scripting a perfect moment.
Connor McDavid came into Wednesday night’s game against the Arizona Coyotes two goals shy of reaching the 60-goal plateau for the first time in his career.
He opened the scoring a few minutes into the first period, putting everybody on watch for the rest of the game. The Coyotes and Oilers battled back and forth for the rest of regulation and ultimately went to overtime tied at 3-3, setting the stage for McDavid to reach 60 goals in dramatic fashion…
What they said…
“At the end of the day, they’re all just a number,” Connor McDavid said about the goal. “But 60, a lot of great players in the past have done it and it feels good to join that list. Obviously, we’ve got a lot of work left this year and we’re looking forward to putting ourselves in a good spot heading into the postseason.”“Yeah, it’s pretty special,” Leon Draisaitl said about the goal. “I mean, obviously he’s going to downplay it as we all know, but it’s pretty hard to score in this league and to score 60 in a season and still have 10 games to go is pretty remarkable. He’s just a special player.”“When you look at that game tonight, we gave up 16 shots on net versus a team that’s lost one time in regulation in their last 10,” head coach Jay Woodcroft said about the win. “So I think that’s important to realize. Andre Tourigny and his staff do a heck of a job. Their team plays very hard. They’ve lost one time in ten games, and they played hard tonight. And though we didn’t give up a lot, I thought there were some situations we could handle a little bit better. They ended up in the back of our net. There were three chances that ended up in the back of our net. Again, we gave up 16 shots on net. We found a way, and I think that’s important. I don’t think that can be underscored how when you find yourself in a sticky circumstance in maybe a frustrating type game, the ability to find that tying goal and then the ability to find the winning goal, I think it’s important. I think winning is a skill, and we’re continuing to sharpen that.”
THE DAY AFTER IS PRESENTED BY BETWAY
Quick notes…
- Connor McDavid became the 22nd player in NHL history to record 60 goals in a single season and the first Oiler to do so since Wayne Gretzky scored 62 goals during the 1986-87 season. McDavid’s next goal-scoring milestone comes at 66, as that would pass Alex Ovechkin’s 65-goal season from 2007-08 as the most goals in a single season in the salary cap era. Scoring 10 goals in Edmonton’s remaining 10 games would also put McDavid into an exclusive category of players who have scored 70 goals in a single season. Nobody in the NHL has reached the 70-goal plateau since the early 90s.
- Sort of lost in all of the McDavid 60 talk is the fact that Leon Draisaitl had a huge night and matched a career-high in scoring. Draisaitl picked up an assist on all four of Edmonton’s goals and now has 110 points on the season, which is the same amount of points that he scored last season in 80 games and in his Hart Trophy-winning season in 2019-20 in 71 games.
- Next up, the Oilers will look to extend their winning streak to six games with the Vegas Golden Knights in Edmonton on Saturday night. The Oilers are currently four points back of the Golden Knights for the top spot in the Pacific Division and Vegas will play their one game in hand on Thursday night in Calgary against the Flames.
- This is the third time this season that the Oilers have put together a winning streak of at least five games. They won five games in a row back in late October and they reached six wins in a row back in January. Edmonton’s franchise record of nine consecutive wins was set during the 1999-00 season.
Mc60!
Oilersnation and Nation Gear is celebrating Connor McDavid hitting the 60-goal mark by dropping this exclusive design. Get it now while supplies last!
Recent articles from Cam Lewis
