McDavid's Assist Streak Reached 18 as Edmonton Beat Vancouver 4-2

EDMONTON

Edmonton sat on a tie game for a full period, then scored twice in the first four minutes of the third and put the Canucks away, 4–2, at Rogers Place on Saturday night. Jason Dickinson broke the tie 49 seconds into the third, getting to his own rebound twice — a deflection first, then a backhand swept into the open net on the second attempt. At the four-minute mark, Connor McDavid saucered a pass through the slot on the power play, the same feed he had laid off for the opening goal, and Leon Draisaitl dropped to one knee and one-timed it in from inside the right circle. That one stands as the game-winner, and it held up through everything Vancouver threw at the last three minutes.

McDavid's assist on the Draisaitl goal was his third of the night, and it moved him into rare company. He has recorded an assist in all 18 games this season, a streak that ties Adam Oates — who did it for Boston in 1992-93 — for the second-longest in NHL history. Only Wayne Gretzky sits ahead of them, at 23 games for Los Angeles in 1990-91. McDavid has a point in every game as well, making him the sixth player ever to open a season with a point in his team's first 18 games, and his 47 points (10 goals, 37 assists) lead the league, with a 15-point cushion in the scoring race. Oates had held second place on that list alone for 33 years. The point streak is closing on his own standard, too — his career best is 20 straight games, set last season, and Saturday moved him within two of it. The three assists came on three different kinds of goals: a one-timer feed from the slot at even strength, a saucer pass across the power play, and the empty-net setup that ended the night.

Mattias Ekholm opened the scoring at 9:14 of the first period, one-timing a McDavid pass from the front of the right circle past Leevi Merilainen's glove. The streak was safe early — McDavid's first assist of the night came on the game's opening goal. Vancouver answered nine seconds before the intermission — Max Sasson tied it at 19:51, with Oleksiak and Brisebois drawing the assists — and the second period produced no goals at all. Brock Boeser left down the tunnel with 2:02 left in the second after blocking a shot off his foot, then returned to the bench shortly after, the one real scare of the night for a Vancouver team running out of players to lose. It was Hockey Fights Cancer night at Rogers Place.

Boeser made it a game again at 17:25 of the third, deflecting Hronek's slap shot past Devon Levi with Vancouver attacking six-on-five, Pettersson drawing the second assist. The push lasted two minutes. With Merilainen on the bench, McDavid fed Draisaitl for the empty-net goal at 19:15 — Draisaitl's second goal and third point of the night, and his 16th goal of the season, tying Minnesota's Kirill Kaprizov for the league lead. He had assisted on Ekholm's opener and finished with seven shots on goal.

Levi, playing his first game back from injury, stopped 20 of 22 shots and improved to 7-1-0. Vancouver's two goals came on a late first-period finish and a six-on-five deflection in the dying minutes — in between, Levi held a clean sheet for a full period and change while the game sat tied. Merilainen stopped 26 of 29 at the other end. Edmonton outshot Vancouver 30–22, went 1-for-3 on the power play and killed both Vancouver chances with the man advantage. Evan Bouchard's assist on the Draisaitl power-play goal stretched his point streak to six games, and he and Draisaitl have each recorded a point in 16 of Edmonton's 18 games. McDavid logged 25:15 of ice time; Draisaitl played 24:28.

The matchup read like a mismatch on paper — Edmonton arrived as the league's highest-scoring team at 4.12 goals a game, Vancouver arrived allowing 4.61 a game, the worst mark in the league — and for two periods it refused to play along. The win snapped a two-game slide for the Oilers (12-3-3), who are 10-0-2 when they score first and sit atop the Pacific Division. Vancouver (3-15-1) has lost five straight and 15 of its past 16 after a 2-1 start.

Edmonton stays at Rogers Place on Monday night, when the Rangers visit and the streak goes back on the ice with McDavid: an assist would make it 19 straight games, and an assist in each of the five games after that would pull him level with Gretzky. Vancouver goes home to host Philadelphia the same night.

Every goal from this one lives on the game's Game Center page.