McDavid, Draisaitl both on pace for 100 points
EDMONTON — As the folks from the BarDown website point out, Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl have more points (43) than the entire Anaheim roster (41) which speaks to the brilliance of the Edmonton Oilers supernovas and the California club’s popgun offence.
Before Tuesday night’s game against the Ottawa Senators, McDavid had 22 points, 17 in the previous seven games, and Draisaitl had 21, off his six-assist night against Ottawa on Sunday, the first by an Oiler player in 34 years going back to Wayne Gretzky in 1987.
That’s two points a night on average, so can they do the unthinkable and hit 100 in 56 games? Be the first since Mario Lemieux in 1995-96 to average at least two points a game when he racked up 161 points in 70 games for Pittsburgh?
If you look at last season, McDavid had 84 points in his first 56 games. Draisaitl had 89, so they’ll need to be better, especially McDavid. They’re on different lines now but they’re on the power play together. The Oilers have 12 PP goals, only four fewer than the Ducks have scored (evenstrength, powerplay and penalty-kill). McDavid has 10 PP points, Draisaitl nine.
McDavid has been on the ice for 25 of the Oilers’ 38 goals, Draisaitl 28.
“They’re phenomenal players, I hope they do it,” said Oilers coach Dave Tippett in the wake of Draisaitl’s all-time best night, and McDavid’s five points in only 17 minutes, the fewest he has played this season, with only one shift in the final 10 minutes.
That was the sixth of his career as he’s now nine points from 500. Only Evgeni Malkin (eight) has more fivepoint games amongst active players.
Oilers winger James Neal played on a Pittsburgh team with Sidney Crosby and Malkin, now he’s got McDavid and Draisaitl. Charmed life.
“They make so many great plays around the net, around the post area,” said Neal, who marvels at Draisaitl’s playmaking ability.
“What I see with Leon is his ability to hold guys off (one-on-one) and still know where everybody is on the ice. There’s his deception … I mean he’s got a great shot too. He can do so many things on the ice.”
Tippett would love them both to hit 100, but says the 56-game All-Canadian schedule where everybody but Ottawa is highly competitive might militate against it.
“It’s a short schedule, the games are going to get tighter. Maybe you’ll get a game like the last one where we got some bounces early and got up and you can start thinking like that (100 points),” he said.
“But once you get to the 30 or 40-game mark, all the games will be like playoff games so people running around and scoring a bunch of points in a game probably won’t be the norm.”
But is the sum of the parts greater with these two guys who are on every single power play for the first 90 seconds, however?
“They certainly have great chemistry together, they’re top, top players who can execute at a high, high level. You put players that creative together and they find ways to beat people (one-on-one) and creates openings for other players,” said Tippett.