FINAL: New Jersey Devils 4, Edmonton Oilers 3 (SO)
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins played his 1,038th game for the Edmonton Oilers in New Jersey on Tuesday night, passing Kevin Lowe’s franchise record of 1,037, and he played like a man determined to decorate the occasion: an assist on the opening goal, a power-play goal of his own, and a shootout attempt stopped one save short of finishing the story himself. The background to the record is in our original report: Nugent-Hopkins Breaks Oilers Games Played Record. The game, though, went to the Devils by the narrowest route there is.
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The Record Night, Played Out
Nugent-Hopkins set up Evan Bouchard’s opening goal at 8:29 of the first period, and Edmonton carried a 1-0 lead into the second. The middle period flipped it. Former Oiler Connor Brown tied the game on a power play, and Jack Hughes scored twice in 45 seconds to put New Jersey up 3-1. Edmonton’s own power play dragged them back: Nugent-Hopkins scored late in the second, with Bouchard and Kasperi Kapanen assisting, and Leon Draisaitl tied it 3-3 one minute into the third on a five-on-three, with Connor McDavid drawing an assist.
That assist kept a second record moving. McDavid has now opened the season with an assist in 16 straight games, an NHL record, and he leads the league with 31 assists. Overtime solved nothing, so the shootout ran to a fourth round: McDavid scored for Edmonton, Jesper Bratt and Arseny Gritsyuk answered for New Jersey, and Gritsyuk’s goal stood as the winner when Connor Hellebuyck, making his first home start since his October 23 trade from Winnipeg, stopped Kapanen to close it. Tristan Jarry made 31 saves in the loss.
The defeat ends Edmonton’s seven-game road winning streak to open the season, the first loss of any kind away from home, but the three-game New York swing still returned five of a possible six points. Edmonton comes home at 11-2-3, while the Devils, winners of five straight on home ice, sit 10-5-0. Head coach Mike Babcock’s complaint was the second period, when his side was outshot 15-3 and let the game tilt.
Lowe Passes The Torch
The man Nugent-Hopkins passed had his say on the night. Kevin Lowe, whose 1,037 games had stood as the franchise mark since 1998, sent a video message carried by Sportsnet. “That record has stood around for 28 years and I’ve been extremely proud of it,” Lowe said, congratulating the new holder. The two men remain the only players to reach 1,000 games as Oilers, with Ryan Smyth third on the list.
The goal and the assist moved Nugent-Hopkins’ career line to 295 goals and 518 assists for 813 points, every one of them as an Oiler. He ranks eighth in franchise goals, sixth in assists and seventh in points, and the nearest active name on the games list is not close: Draisaitl stands fourth at 870 games, 168 behind the new mark. The club marked the milestone with its own tribute film on Tuesday, and the dressing room had already voted with its wardrobe at the morning skate, the full roster arriving in shirts reading “1038 games Most Games Played as an Edmonton Oiler.”
What The Record Means Next
Unlike most franchise records, this one is still under construction. Nugent-Hopkins is signed through the 2028-29 season, so the mark he set on Tuesday should keep growing for years, health permitting. The games are not ceremonial, either: with a goal and an assist on the record night, he has seven points in his past five games and remains a fixture on the power play that rescued a point in Newark.
Next comes the home crowd’s turn. The record fell on the road, so Rogers Place gets its moment when a four-game homestand opens on Thursday against the Anaheim Ducks. Expect the building to give No. 93 the ovation Newark could not. A record 28 years in the making changed hands on a night Edmonton lost; the single point will be forgotten by spring, but the name at the top of the games list will not.
