You kind of got the feeling the Edmonton Oilers weren’t going to stop until they got Connor McDavid his 100th assist of the season
There were 99 reasons why the Oilers captain is having a season that he is (despite ‘only’ reaching the 30-goal milestone) and somehow finding some other way to one-up his five-trophy take home from a season ago, when he led the league in goals, assists and, obviously, points.
And with the 100th he added Monday, McDavid became just the fourth player in NHL history to triple-digit his way in helpers in one season, joining Mario Lemieux, Bobby Orr and, of course, Wayne Gretzky, who reached the feat in 11 different seasons — you know, just in case getting there once, like the rest, wasn’t tough enough.
That much we know, and had to wait three full games as McDavid sidelined himself to take care of a minor-yet-nagging lower-body injury. In the meantime, the chance arose where McDavid might not have been the fourth player ever to do it, but the fifth, thanks to the Tampa Bay Lightning’s Nikita Kucherov.
He leads the way in NHL scoring with 141 points on 43 goals, and quietly crept his way into the 100-point conversation in McDavid’s absence, recording his 99th earlier in the night in a 4-2 loss to the Buffalo Sabres, of all teams, who immediately turned around and fired their head coach, Don Granato, Tuesday after missing the playoffs for a third straight season.
But the Sabres rattled off enough of a performance a night earlier to ensure McDavid enjoyed his day in the sun with a solo assist parade.
That is insane, just a casual 100 assists every year,” McDavid said of Gretzky, who was last to hit 100 assists back in 1990-’91 to make it 11 in a row. “That is why he is the greatest of all time.”
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