Connor McDavid scored another brace, his sixth in eight games, as the Edmonton Oilers beat the Buffalo Sabers 3-2 on Monday.
With his 53rd and 54th goals of the campaign, the Alberta superstar gave himself a ten-goal lead over his closest pursuer, David Pastrnak, of the Boston Bruins.
Thanks to this new harvest of two goals, McDavid beats his best production of points in career, at 124 points after 65 games. He had totaled 123 in 80 games last year.
It was the No. 97 Oilers who opened the scoring when he took veteran Craig Anderson by storm with a spin game on his backhand side.
On a power play, Jeff Skinner tied the score before the end of the first period, firing a one-timer to beat Stuart Skinner. On the streak, Tage Thompson got his 41st assist.
After Ryan Nugent-Hopkins was disallowed for offside in the middle period, Edmonton finished the engagement strong and the fourth line provided a timely goal, Derek Ryan’s.
A second time, the Sabers brought the counters to zero, this time thanks to Dylan Cozens, who scored his club’s second goal after 41 seconds of play in the third period.
Less than three minutes later, McDavid put the visitors back in charge. He accepted the throw-in from Warren Foegele at the entrance of the zone, before easily escaping his cover and beating Anderson between the leggings.
The Oilers’ next game is Thursday night in Boston.
Late-game turbulence sweeps Jets away
The San Jose Sharks saved the best for last in a 3-2 overtime win over the Winnipeg Jets.
San Jose was on its way to a sixth straight loss before tying the game with ten seconds left in regulation time.
Couture now has seven career overtime goals, the third most in Sharks history. Brent Burns and Patrick Marleau dominate with ten game-winning goals each.
It was a Logan Couture goal at 1:21 of overtime that made the difference. He collected his 22nd of the season when he beat David Rittich as he spun alone past him after being well fed by defender Erik Karlsson.
Karlsson and Couture were behind the equalizing goal late in the third. After the puck deflected off a player, Tomas Hertl retrieved the loose puck to lodge it in the top to force overtime.
Karlsson had his 25th multi-point game this season, a new high for the Sharks. The back thus doubles Brent Burns, who had collected 24 in 2015-16.
Nate Schmidt broke a 1-1 tie at 14:53 of the third to put the Jets ahead with a one-timer after assists from Nikolaj Ehlers and Blake Wheeler.
Nino Niederreiter scored his first goal in a Jets uniform to put his new team ahead in the second period.
Niederreiter’s goal was his 200th career goal and he became the first Swiss to reach that milestone in NHL history. Roman Josi is closest to his compatriots at 157 goals in 820 games.
Josh Morrissey collected his 52nd assist on Niederreiter’s goal. In the history of the Jets/Thrashers franchise, there are only three other players who have done better than him. The leader is Blake Wheeler with 71 in 2018-19.