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 has started a season with a 15-game points streak for the second time. McDavid began the 2021-22 season with a 17-game points streak.
McDavid extended his season-opening assists streak to 15 by getting the secondary assist on a power-play goal by Evan Bouchard 9:49 into the second.
McDavid ended the game with 39 points and when he set up Bouchard’s goal, he became the fastest player to 30 assists in an NHL season. Wayne Gretzky reached 30 assists through 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 team history. Bouchard and Leon Draisaitl contributed two assists apiece for the Oilers.
Pavel Dorefeyev scored in the second period for the Rangers, who dropped their fourth straight and fell to 1-5-1 in their past seven games.
Goalie Matt Tomkins made 27 saves in his Edmonton debut and was awarded the game’s first star. Tomkins made his seventh career NHL appearance and first since April 17, 2024, for 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 got 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.
Upon getting into the offensive zone, McDavid breezed past defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov, cut to the net between the circles and lifted his ninth goal over Garand.
The Oilers went up 2-0 6:19 into the contest when Dach snapped a turnaround shot through two defenders in the right circle past Garand after getting a pass from Bouchard.
Nearly five minutes later, Bouchard had a goal disallowed due to goalie interference. But the defenseman gave the Oilers a 3-0 lead in the second 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.