McDavid a one-man wrecking crew
OILERS 6, LIGHTNING 2
The Tampa Bay Lightning will be having nightmares about Connor McDavid for a long, long time.
The first-place team in the NHL was absolutely powerless to stop the Edmonton Oilers captain Monday in a stunning four-goal, five-point performance that lifted Edmonton to a 6-2 victory.
It might have been the best game McDavid has ever played in the NHL. He had two goals and an assist in the first 40 minutes, staking the Oilers to a 4-1 lead
Then, after Tampa made it 4-2 early in the third and things looked a little dicey, he calmed everything down and blew everything up at the same time when he completed the hat trick and put in a fourth for good measure late in the third.
Any questions about his leadership abilities were scorched in the ensuing blaze.
And the trickle-down theory seemed to touch every aspect of the team. Everything that had been going wrong for the Oilers recently went right.
After going three-for-50 since Dec. 12, the Oilers power play went two-for-two in the first period.
McDavid was absolutely next level great in this game. Every time he was on the ice, every time he touched the puck, everyone in the building held their breath.
Every shift included something spectacular, brilliantly subtle, or both. He undressed players. He blew past players. His high-speed goal over Andrei Vasilevskiy’s shoulder in the second period defied all the laws of logic and physics.
Leon Draisaitl and Iiro Pakarinen added singles for the Oilers.
The Bolts made it kind of interesting when Yanni Gourde cut it to 4-2 with 18:06 left in the third. At least until, guess who?
McDavid. Breakaway. Hat trick. Crisis averted. Game over.