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Connor McDavid scored on a coast-to-coast move in the opening minute and added an assist to extend a pair of personal streaks to 15 games as the Edmonton Oilers remained unbeaten on the road with a 4-1 victory over the New York Rangers on Sunday night.
McDavid scored his ninth goal 50 seconds into the contest and extended his season-opening point streak to 15 games for the second time in his career. He began the 2021-22 season with a 17-game point streak.
McDavid extended his season-opening assists streak to 15 games by recording the secondary assist on Evan Bouchard’s power-play goal 9:49 into the second period.
McDavid finished with 39 points and became the fastest player to reach 30 assists in an NHL season when he set up Bouchard’s goal. Wayne Gretzky reached 30 assists in 16 games in 1984-85, when he finished with 73 goals and 208 points for the Oilers.
Colton Dach scored twice for the Oilers, who matched the 1983-84 team for the best road start in franchise history at 7-0. Bouchard and Leon Draisaitl contributed two assists apiece.
Pavel Dorofeyev scored in the second period for the Rangers, who dropped their fourth straight game and fell to 1-5-1 in their past seven.
Goaltender Matt Tomkins made 27 saves in his Edmonton debut and was named the game’s first star. Tomkins made his seventh career NHL appearance and first since April 17, 2024, with Tampa Bay.
New York rookie Dylan Garand stopped 21 shots.
McDavid scored his eighth career opening-minute goal — breaking a tie with Mark Messier for the most in Edmonton history — by finishing off a brilliant individual effort.
After Tomkins made a stick save on Mika Zibanejad, Bouchard collected the puck and quickly found McDavid along the left side in the neutral zone. McDavid took the pass, banked the puck off the boards to himself and sped down the left side.
After entering the offensive zone, McDavid breezed past defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov, cut toward the net between the circles and lifted his ninth goal over Garand.
The Oilers went up 2-0 at 6:19 when Dach snapped a turnaround shot through two defenders in the right circle and past Garand after receiving a pass from Bouchard.
Nearly five minutes later, Bouchard had a goal disallowed for goalie interference. However, the defenseman gave the Oilers a 3-0 lead in the second period with a slap shot from the right point after McDavid passed the puck back to Draisaitl.
New York ended Tomkins’ shutout bid when Dorofeyev cut to the edge of the crease and jammed a rebound into the net with 6:38 left in the second period.
Dach added an empty-net goal with 40 seconds remaining in the game.
–Field Level Media
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