MONTREAL — If records are made to be broken, then the Edmonton Oilers record book must be made of vulcanized granite.
Leon Draisaitl can score 50 goals in 2024, and it’s impressive. Not as impressive, of course, as the time Gretzky did it in 39 games, back in 1981.
As a team, Edmonton led the league with 325 goals last season, around three-quarters of the 400-plus goals the Oilers scored in those five separate seasons back in the ’80’s.
Connor McDavid eclipses 150 points last season? “Remember those four seasons when Wayne had more than 200 points?”
The shoes that won five Stanley Cups are still massive to fill, the bars set so high that the changing game has lowered the ceiling below the shelves on which many of those records sit.
On a Saturday night at the Bell Centre, however, today’s Edmonton Oilers did something that the Gretz, Mess, Coff and the boys never managed to do. They won their 10th consecutive game, a 2-1 overtime over a game Montreal Canadiens team, setting a new team record.
Take that, Slats.
“There have been a lot of wins in this organization, for a long, long time,” Draisaitl said. “So it’s kind of hard to believe that they never won 10 games in a row back then, with the teams they had.
“It’s something to be proud of, of course. They’ve had amazing teams… and this is a big credit to our group. It wasn’t an easy start to the season — and we’re not looking to stop at 10.”
“It’s special for sure,” said Zach Hyman, “to break a record like that when you have guys who have broken every record in the book.”
On a night when Montreal goalie Sam Montembeault looked like a young Ken Dryden, Evan Bouchard’s powerplay bomb closed secured win No. 10 in overtime, the shot clock tilted 41-24 in Edmonton’s favour.
It was yet another low-scoring, opponent-scores-first, come-from-behind win for Edmonton. It’s been a road trip full of these, the kind of games this team used to be allergic to.
Somehow, they’ve unlocked the safe to these games. Suddenly team “five goals per night” is winning on two or three.
Consistently.
“We’ve been a team that’s really relied on our powerplay for a long time, and when our powerplay is not going, we don’t usually win,” Hyman admitted, as a 3-0 road trip came to a close with a powerplay that went one-for-eight. “Of late, our powerplay hasn’t been going at the same rate we’ve been used to, but we’ve been finding ways to win close games. Where the other team scores first.
“We’re just kind of unbothered by it, and continue to just press on.”
While the Oilers were in search of a spark, an Emergency Alert went out back home in Alberta. There, the temperatures hovered around the minus-33 Celsius mark, and Albertans were asked to ration electricity due to a stressed-out grid.
Far away in Montreal, the Oilers did what all Albertans are doing. They made do with less, sweeping this three-game road trip on just five goals in regulation time, and two more in OT.
Consistently winning those low-scoring, tight games. It’s the last conquest for this team, and that became clear in last spring’s playoff loss to Vegas in which the Oilers held a lead in every game, yet lost the series in six games.
“It was almost like we were hanging our hat on scoring six goals every night and that’s tough to do in this league,” Mattias Ekholm said of the team he joined last season. “For us to be able to dig some wins out in a manner like this speaks volumes about us.”
Incredibly, this is the third time in their last 48 games that the Oilers have forged nine-game skeins. This latest one leaves them one point behind the third-place Los Angeles Kings in the Pacific, and amazingly within reach of the second-place Vegas Golden Knights.
“It’s pretty cool,” Ekholm said. “This franchise has a rich history, so to be able to do a franchise record is pretty awesome. This group worked hard for it. We were close earlier this year, even last year we had a run at it, so it’s nice to get it.
“It’s more about the wins than the record itself, but it’s a nice little bonus.”
On his 27th birthday, McDavid assisted on the winner to extend his latest points streak to 10 games.
It’s a cute little run.
He’ll only need a point in every game between now and April 17 to beat Gretzky’s 51-game points streak back in ’83-’84.
