McDavid Hits 50 Points In 21 Games

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Connor McDavid 50 Points: The Fifth Player Ever There This Fast

The list is the story. As the Oilers’ official recap on NHL.com records, McDavid’s primary assist on Bouchard’s goal made him just the fifth player in NHL history to reach 50 points in a season in 21 games played or fewer, joining Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Mike Bossy and Bernie Nicholls. He is also the first player in the league to reach 50 points this season.

The company comes with dates attached. Sportsnet’s game report lays out the full list: Gretzky got there in 18 games in 1983-84, 19 in 1984-85 and 20 in 1987-88; Lemieux did it in 17 games in 1988-89 and in 18 games twice, in 1992-93 and 1995-96; Bossy needed 21 games in 1984-85 and Nicholls 21 in 1988-89. McDavid’s 50th point lands in his 21st game, on the same line of the table as Bossy and Nicholls, and nobody else has joined that table in the 38 years since Nicholls.

The streak underneath the total is a record of its own for McDavid. He has a point in every game Edmonton has played this season, and Sportsnet notes the 21-game run is a personal best, passing the two 20-game point streaks he had put together earlier in his career. His line for the season reads 11 goals and 39 assists for 50 points, all of them league-leading totals. Spread across Edmonton’s 84-game schedule, 50 points in 21 games is exactly a 200-point pace, the chase iimiTV mapped out on Friday when the number still sat at 205 through 20 games.

Gretzky, whose name fills most of that table, gave his read on the run while he was in Toronto on Friday. He called McDavid’s start “truly remarkable,” as TSN reported, and pointed past the points to the purpose behind them: “He’s on a mission to win a Stanley Cup, he wants it desperately, and that’s what you need out of your best player and your captain.”

Bouchard Breaks The Deadlock, Levi Slams The Door

For a long time on Saturday, the milestone looked like it might have to wait. The first period ended scoreless, with Colton Dach and Brandon Duhaime dropping the gloves early and Edmonton recovering from a 6-1 shot deficit to lead 10-8 after one. In the second, Trent Frederic came out of the penalty box onto a two-on-one and beat Anthony Stolarz twice over, hitting one post and then the other before the puck bounced clear. The goal finally came at 15:34 of the second period: McDavid fed Bouchard at the top of the zone and the defenceman floated a long shot through traffic that Stolarz never picked up through the screen.

Bouchard’s night was bigger than one goal. The Oakville native scored his 12th of the season, leads all NHL defencemen with 34 points (12 goals, 22 assists) in 21 games, and tied Darnell Nurse at 88 goals for the second-most by a defenceman in Oilers history. It was also his 450th career game, and his 367 career points leave him one behind Charlie Huddy for third among Edmonton defencemen all time. Leon Draisaitl drew the second assist, extending his point streak to eight games, the 20th streak of at least eight games in his career.

Devon Levi did the rest. Levi stopped all 19 Toronto shots for the first shutout of his NHL career, and his two biggest moments bookended the third period. Early in the frame, John Tavares appeared to redirect the tying goal in, but a lengthy review ruled his stick was above the crossbar and the goal came off the board. In the dying seconds, with Stolarz pulled and Toronto pressing, Levi made one more stop to close it. McDavid nearly ended it himself at the other end, only for Auston Matthews to get down and block his look at the empty net. Stolarz finished with 22 saves in his second straight start, the first time this season Toronto has started him in consecutive games, with Sergei Bobrovsky struggling since signing on July 1.

Maple Leafs Finish A Record Homestand Winless

The other side of the 1-0 line is a piece of franchise history nobody in Toronto wanted. The loss was the Maple Leafs’ sixth straight at home, and all six came on the same homestand, which Toronto finishes 0-6-0 and outscored 23-9. The record was set up before the puck dropped: pre-game reporting on the homestand noted that a defeat on Saturday would give Toronto the most losses in a single homestand in franchise history, six, after Thursday’s loss to Minnesota had already tied the franchise record for the fewest points earned on a homestand of at least five games. Saturday made it official. Sportsnet Stats added that Toronto has now lost six straight home games in regulation for the first time since October and November of 1985.

The numbers around the streak are just as stark. Toronto falls to 8-12-2, with a 1-8-0 record over its last nine games, and the one win in that stretch was the 7-2 victory in Edmonton on October 24, the first meeting between these teams this season. The Leafs actually held one of the league’s best offences to a single goal on Saturday and still lost, because for the third time this season they did not score at all. Veteran defenceman Chris Tanev returned to the lineup after missing Thursday’s loss to Minnesota and last Sunday’s loss to New Jersey, and it changed nothing at the end that matters. Behind the Edmonton bench, the night carried its own edge: Oilers head coach Mike Babcock faced the Maple Leafs in Toronto for the first time since the club fired him in November 2019.

What Comes Next For Both Clubs

Edmonton leaves Toronto at 15-3-3, winners of four straight and 7-1-1 over its last nine games, and the road trip is only starting. Saturday opened a six-game trip, and the Oilers play the second half of a back-to-back on Sunday night against the Philadelphia Flyers, where McDavid’s streak and his 200-point pace get their next test less than 24 hours later.

Toronto gets out of its own building, which may be the best news available to it. The Maple Leafs visit the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday, their first road game since the homestand began, carrying a franchise-record six losses from six home games and a season that has slipped to four games under .500 before the middle of November. McDavid came home to Ontario and left with his name beside Gretzky, Lemieux, Bossy and Nicholls. The Leafs stayed home all week and left with a record of their own, the kind that gets a season re-examined.