HIGHLIGHTS
- Connor McDavid scored his 15th career hat trick and added two assists in a 5-2 Oilers win over San Jose
- McDavid now has 133 points, leads the NHL by a wide margin, and needs three goals in three games for 50
- See the hat trick completion and full game recap below
The best player in the world had himself a Wednesday night.
Connor McDavid scored his 15th career hat trick and finished with five points as the Edmonton Oilers beat San Jose 5-2 at SAP Center. The win moved Edmonton into sole possession of first place in the Pacific with 90 points.
Macklin Celebrini opened 1-0 for the Sharks with a power-play goal. McDavid answered at 6:18 with one of his own, jamming in a loose puck at the left post.
Vasily Podkolzin made it 2-1 on another power play. Jack Roslovic pushed it to 3-1 on a breakaway set up by a McDavid pass from his own goal line. Tanner Sherwood cut it to 3-2 before McDavid drove the net and tapped in a fourth.
The hat trick completed at 14:13 of the second. A McDavid pass to Roslovic that deflected off Dmitry Orlov’s skate and through Alex Nedeljkovic’s five-hole. He factored in on all five Oilers goals, recording a point roughly every three shifts.
Check out the full highlights below:
McDavid now has 133 points (47 goals, 86 assists), the most in the NHL by a wide margin. He needs three goals in the final three games for 50, which would put him squarely in the Rocket Richard race. Caufield and MacKinnon have been chasing that award all season, but McDavid going on a tear like this at the right time changes the math. On the Hart side, it is a real four-way race between McDavid, Kucherov, MacKinnon, and Celebrini. Nights like Wednesday make the case for 97 pretty hard to argue with.
Leon Draisaitl has missed significant time down the stretch, and McDavid has carried the offense almost single-handedly through it. 133 points on a team missing its second star for stretches of the season is not normal production. It is not even close to normal.
Nedeljkovic gave up four goals on 22 shots before being pulled. Evan Bouchard had two assists. Roslovic finished with a goal and an assist.
Edmonton sits two points ahead of Vegas with three games left. The Golden Knights have one game in hand. This Pacific race is not over. The blueline still needs work this summer, and that conversation is coming. But McDavid carrying this team to first place is about as good a sign as you could ask for heading into the postseason.
