Connor McDavid Ties Gretzky’s Season-Opening Assist Streak — and a Rookie Goalie Still Beat Him in a Shootout

The record fell six minutes into the game, on a goal Connor McDavid didn’t even finish.

At 6:10 of the first period at Rogers Place, McDavid fed Leon Draisaitl on the right side; Draisaitl’s shot toward the crease pinballed off Vasily Podkolzin’s skate and then Red Wings forward Carter Mazur’s skate and in. The secondary assist was McDavid’s 26th in 12 games. No player in NHL history has opened a season with more — Mario Lemieux’s 23 assists in 12 games in 1988-89 stood for nearly four decades. It also extended McDavid’s season-opening assist streak to 12 games, matching the longest in league history, a mark he now shares with Wayne Gretzky, Ken Linseman and Sebastian Aho. And his 34 points are the most any Oiler has ever scored before Nov. 1.

Edmonton lost the game anyway. How is the rest of this story.

Detroit, closing a four-game western road trip, tied it in the second on a power play — Alex DeBrincat to Lucas Raymond to Viktor Arvidsson, who one-timed it past Tristan Jarry at 8:35. The period also cost Edmonton a winger: Zach Hyman took a hit from Detroit defenseman Andreas Englund at 7:36, his head made contact with the glass, and he did not return.

The third period was a fistfight in miniature. Isaac Howard, the 2025 Hobey Baker winner at Michigan State, one-timed a Kasperi Kapanen feed on the power play at 4:18 for his first goal of the season and a 2–1 lead. It lasted 30 seconds. Arvidsson dug the puck out from behind the net and found Emmitt Finnie in front at 4:48. Colton Dach tipped home a Ryan Shea point shot at 16:32 — upheld after a high-stick review — for his first of the season and a 3–2 Edmonton lead that looked like the winner.

Then Detroit pulled its rookie goalie, and the rookie goalie became the story. With Michal Postava on the bench for the extra attacker, Raymond put the puck into Dylan Larkin’s skates in front; Larkin kicked it up to his stick and slipped it between Jarry’s pads at 18:34 — his second goal of the season, ending an eight-game drought, and Detroit’s third tying goal of the night.

Postava, 24, undrafted out of Czechia, was making his first NHL start and playing his second NHL game. He had debuted in relief against Vancouver last Thursday. On Monday he made 25 saves in regulation and overtime — the biggest a point-blank stop on Evan Bouchard from the slot with nine seconds left in the extra period — and then the shootout became a coronation against the two scariest shooters alive. He stopped McDavid. He stopped Draisaitl. Raymond scored the only goal of the shootout at the other end, and Postava turned away Ryan Nugent-Hopkins to end it.

Moritz Seider deserves his line in this, too: Detroit drew him against McDavid all night and largely kept the captain from a clean look, and Detroit needed every bit of it, because McDavid’s quiet night — one assist, 26:27 of ice — was still a record night.

The standings will say Detroit (5-4-3) finished its trip 2-1-1 and Edmonton (8-2-2) has lost two straight for the first time this season, with the Battle of Alberta coming Wednesday. The record book will say something simpler: on the night Connor McDavid matched Gretzky, the best player in the world got beat by a kid nobody drafted, in his first start, in a shootout.

The Sports Desk’s read: Twelve games, 34 points, an assist in every single one — and the streak’s signature night ends with McDavid stopped cold in the shootout by a first-time starter. The streak is the history. Postava is the story.