Ice Breaker: McDavid makes it 19 for 19, Draisaitl and Levi finish the Rangers
McDavid's season-long point streak hits 19, the Sharks win a shootout, and Vancouver's slide reaches five straight.
Connor McDavid has a point in all 19 games Edmonton has played this season, and last night he made it 19 for 19 before the game was seven minutes old. Leon Draisaitl did the rest, Devon Levi ate the Rangers' power plays, and Vancouver's home ice is still a soft landing for everybody but the Canucks.
The games
Oilers 3, Rangers 1
McDavid scored unassisted at 6:42 of the first, and Draisaitl made it 2-0 early in the second off a Vasily Podkolzin feed. Jaroslav Chmelar answered shorthanded two minutes later, and Draisaitl iced it into the empty net with 1:13 left. The Rangers outshot Edmonton 29-20 and still never led.
By our count: McDavid has 48 points in 19 games, and Draisaitl has a point in six straight.
Lind's read: Levi faced 10 shots while Edmonton was shorthanded and stopped all 10, per NHL data. When your power-play numbers get eaten that cleanly, the shot total stops meaning much.
New York led twice, on Ben Hutton's first-period goal and a Victor Eklund power-play goal early in the second. Ivar Stenberg and Tyler Toffoli tied it each time, and Stenberg won it in the shootout. San Jose outshot the Islanders 39-32, and Yaroslav Askarov made 30 saves.
Macklin Celebrini played 25:40 with six shots and nothing on the scoresheet, while Matthew Schaefer logged 30:51 for the Islanders and extended his point streak to three games.
Sully's chirp: Ilya Sorokin made 37 saves and got one point for it. That's doing all the dishes and getting handed the bill for the soap.
Flyers 3, Canucks 1
Michael Bunting scored two minutes in, and Travis Konecny made it 2-0 on the power play off Matvei Michkov and Christian Dvorak. Jonathan Lekkerimäki got one back on a late power play, and Travis Sanheim hit the empty net. Joseph Woll stopped 18 of 19 the night after Philadelphia blew three leads in Calgary.
Lind's read: Vancouver is 0-5 in its last five and 1-8 at home, per NHL data. Filip Hronek played 31:11, which tells you how few pairs the coaches trust right now.
Three stars of the night
- Leon Draisaitl, EDM. Two goals, including the one that put it away, and six straight games with a point.
- Devon Levi, EDM. Twenty-eight saves on 29 shots and a perfect night on the penalty kill. He's 8-1 this season.
- Ivar Stenberg, SJS. The tying goal in the first and the shootout winner.
Lind's number of the night
63.1 percent. That's Vancouver's penalty kill this season, per NHL data, the number underneath a five-game slide, and Konecny's power-play goal went straight through it again. You can survive a cold power play for a month. A kill that leaks one goal in every three chances sinks you in two weeks.
Sully's take of the morning
Look, the Rangers outshot Edmonton by nine in Edmonton and lost by two. That's a team that brought the better grocery list and still went home without the milk.
Here's my take: nobody in the league is stopping McDavid right now, and the only real strategy left is hoping his flight gets delayed. Nineteen games, nineteen nights on the scoresheet, and the opposition's best idea so far is a shrug. Grade for the Rangers: C. Grade for anybody planning to slow him down: incomplete, see me after class.
Tonight
Seven games. The Panthers are in Columbus at 7:30 p.m. ET (ESPN+), with the Blue Jackets 7-8 and Florida trying to answer Sunday's mess in Boston. The Devils bring a 13-5 record to Winnipeg, and Colorado visits Toronto at 7.
Minnesota at Montreal is the one to watch at 7: the Wild are 12-3-4, the Canadiens 11-3-3. Detroit plays at St. Louis at 8 (TNT), and Nashville closes it in Los Angeles at 10.
