Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid added another historic milestone to his decorated career on Thursday night, assisting on three game-changing goals in a wild 6-5 comeback victory over the Montreal Canadiens at Rogers Place.
McDavid’s three assists were the 137th game of his career with at least three points, tying him with Jari Kurri for second place in Oilers history. Only Wayne Gretzky, with more, sits ahead of him. The 720-game mark also made McDavid the third-fastest player in NHL history to reach 200 multi-assist games, behind Gretzky (449 games) and Mario Lemieux (580 games). He is now just the second player in Oilers history to achieve 200 multi-assist contests.
The matchup was a back-and-forth battle. Montreal opened the scoring at 7:28 of the first period when Alex Newhook redirected a rebound past goaltender Calvin Pickard. Edmonton responded with David Tomasek’s first NHL goal at 16:12, tying the game. The Oilers surged ahead in the second period as Adam Henrique tipped in a Jake Walman point shot at 10:27, and then came Andrew Mangiapane’s goal at 13:28, assisted by Darnell Nurse after a behind-the-net play orchestrated by McDavid.
Montreal then mounted an unprecedented 1:52 scoring burst, netting three goals to regain the lead, with Josh Anderson and Cole Caufield contributing two of the markers. Alex Newhook added his second goal early in the third period to make it 5-3. Edmonton’s comeback began at 11:19 when McDavid set up Leon Draisaitl for a power-play goal from the blue paint. Moments later, McDavid assisted on Ryan Nugent-Hopkins’ backhand tally to tie the game at 5-5.
The go-ahead moment came with 1:09 remaining when Vasily Podkolzin finished a backhand from Darnell Nurse’s centering pass for his first goal of the season. McDavid’s three assists, combined with two each from Nurse and Walman, were instrumental in Edmonton’s rally. Calvin Pickard stopped 22 shots for the Oilers, while Sam Montembeault made 23 saves for Montreal.
The Oilers have won two in a row, now holding a 4-3-1 record. They will hit the road again for back-to-back games against the Seattle Kraken and Vancouver Canucks this weekend.
