EDMONTON — If you know Connor McDavid even a little bit, you’d know that the thought of stretching this pursuit of 1,000 points into a Saturday morning media availability in the Centre of hockey’s Universe — followed by a Hockey Night in Canada marquee game against the Toronto Maple Leafs — is fingernails-on-the-chalkboard stuff.
My bosses at Sportsnet?
They’d love nothing more than to see Nashville hold McDavid pointless on Thursday, then spend Friday and Saturday setting up Leafs versus Oilers and McDavid’s “Quest For 1,000″. It would be gold, Jerry. Pure gold.
But McDavid?
“I wanted to get it over with tonight,” said McDavid, after collecting a goal and three assists in a 4-3 overtime win over the New York Islanders.
He had eight shots on net, as the best player in the world looked every bit the part.
“Nights like that,” he admitted, “I don’t want to come off the ice.”
Edmonton hosts the Nashville Predators on Thursday, and McDavid sits at 999 career points.
He is poised to become the fourth fastest (659 games) and fourth youngest player (turns 28 on Jan. 13) to reach the 1,000 plateau in National Hockey League history.
As McDavid hits his stride this season with seven points in his past two games, the chances of his 1,000-point pursuit surviving Thursday are about as good as this piece bringing home a Pulitzer Prize in journalism.
“I would have liked to get it done tonight, but a five-point night is not, well, it’s not (accomplished) every day,” McDavid said. “I’d like to not bring it in there (to Toronto), and it’s another big game for us against Nashville.”
What makes a superstar become averse to the type of moment that TV execs dream of?
Wouldn’t a guy prefer the drama of HNIC on a Saturday in his hometown market, with all the media and TV cameras?
“He’s not a guy that likes the show about it all,” said his buddy Leon Draisaitl. “He likes the end product of it and he puts his work into it every single day. I’d be lying if I said he doesn’t want to achieve (1,000 points) as soon as possible — that’s human nature. But he’s not (in it) for the show.
“I hope I am not going to jinx it,” said Draisaitl, “but I have a feeling it is not going to get to Toronto. Knock on wood, I am sure he would love to do it in front of our fans at home.”
On a night where the Islanders hung around on the strength of an awesome Ilya Sorokin performance — New York was outshot 42-22, the high-danger chances 17-3 in Edmonton’s favour — it was the Oilers’ best players who stole the extra points from New York’s top guys.
Draisaitl had two goals, including the OT winner, while Anders Lee had a pair as well. Sorokin was otherworldly.
The Islanders trailed 3-1 with 8:00 to play and somehow dragged this game into OT. There, the trio of Mattias Ekholm, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Zach Hyman ran the Islanders ragged on an OT shift before ceding the ice to McDavid, Draisaitl and Evan Bouchard, who exploited a tired Islanders threesome for the game-winner.
“It was an amazing shift by them. It was selfless to change,” McDavid said. “That was a team overtime win, from those three to change when you have a line like that … it’s kind of an easy one when (the Isles) are so tired like that.”
Draisaitl’s winner pulls him into a tie for the league lead with 12 goals. He didn’t waste any shots, with goals on both of his shots on goal , a patented power-play one-timer and a shot in OT that found a spot in the top corner about the size of a Timbit.
“They’re two pretty good players, aren’t they?” marvelled Isles head coach Patrick Roy. “And the shot that Draisaitl made? I mean, come on … It was a phenomenal shot right under the bar.
“There’s nights going home, you’re pissed off. There’s nights you’re going home and say, ‘OK, we stole a point.’ And tonight, that was the case.”
Meanwhile, McDavid’s coach just kept opening the door for his captain. You could see from miles away that No. 97 was feeling it, and you don’t have to be Scotty Bowman or Toe Blake to know how to deploy McDavid on a night like this one.
“I probably wasn’t using him enough in the first two periods,” Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch said, “but in the third period, it was almost every second shift where he was out there. Four points, but it could have been a lot more.
“When your top players are rolling and feeling good it’s important for the coach to get them on the ice. They’ll make a difference.”
Ya think?
Draisaitl has been the 8-7-1 Oilers’ best player as they shed this post-season hangover and find some semblance of the game we witnessed for the final 80 per cent of last season. Now McDavid has arrived.
You can likely scratch that pre-game feature for Saturday, boss, as McDavid homes in on 1,000 points against a Nashville club that Draisaitl and the captain have had their way with over the years.
One-thousand points? Prior to your 28th birthday?
“We are not talking greatness. We are talking legendary-type stuff,” Draisaitl said. “It is fun to be a part of.”
