McDavid notches two goals and assist in Oilers’ rout of Ducks
EDMONTON 6 ANAHEIM 1
EDMONTON — Considering Connor McDavid sat 114th in NHL scoring on Nov. 10, it has been an impressive climb to where he now sits with 125 points to his credit.
McDavid scored two goals and added an assist to at least temporarily take the lead in what has become a dynamic three-way NHL scoring race as the Edmonton Oilers dumped the Anaheim Ducks 6-1 on Saturday.
McDavid typically played down his impressive charge up the leaderboard from a substandard start.
“It’s nice, I guess. It’s a position I’ve been in many times before,” he said. “We’re playing for things bigger than that — making sure our game is in order, and we’re still playing for positioning. There are 10 games left. You never know what could happen.”
Mattias Ekholm had a goal and two assists for the Oilers (45-23-4), who have won three games in a row.
“I thought we came out flying in the first, played really well,” Ekholm said.
“When the game gets out of hand early, obviously it’s easier to manage them. Their team is usually one that will stick around if they can, but I thought we did a good job of managing in the first and we kind of did a good job of putting them away early and then just went from there.”
Adam Henrique, Warren Foegele and Zach Hyman had the other goals for Edmonton, which is 16-2-2 in its last 20 games on home ice.
Alex Killorn replied for the Ducks (24-46-4), who have lost four straight and are 1-9-1 in their last 11 outings.
“We started out a little slow, measured and they got a couple quality opportunities and they put them in the net,” said Ducks head coach Greg Cronin.
“It’s really hard to start out a game on the road down 3-zip. We dug a hole and we had some chances to get back in. Frankie [Vatrano] had a wide-open net, hit a pipe, but we just weren’t good enough tonight.”
Edmonton got off to a solid start, taking just 3:47 to get the game’s first goal.
Leon Draisaitl dropped a pass back to Henrique, who scored on his own rebound for his 22nd goal of the season.