The best way for the Edmonton Oilers to shake off a tough loss was to let Connor McDavid take over the game.
One night after his team squandered three separate leads in an overtime defeat at Utah, McDavid delivered the kind of performance Edmonton needed.
He scored three goals for his 15th career hat trick and added two assists in a 5-2 victory over the San Jose Sharks on Wednesday that moved the Oilers into sole possession of first place in the Pacific Division.
“He knows our team needed a win,” coach Kris Knoblauch said. “We’re playing a little short-handed and he’s going to be the guy. Tonight every shift he was really dialed in and played extremely well. I’ve seen him play a lot of good games and that was one of his best.”
McDavid was sharp right from the start, scoring a power-play goal on his third shift. He assisted on a power-play goal by Vasily Podkolzin late in the first period and then added two more goals and an assist on his first seven shifts of the second to put away the game.
When McDavid is playing the way he did against the Sharks, the strategy for his teammates is simple.
“Get him the puck,” Oilers defenceman Evan Bouchard said. “When you see him playing the way he was tonight, and honestly, most of the season, you want to get him the puck. He makes things happen when not many other people can.”
McDavid got the best of his matchup against his Canadian Olympic teammate and fellow Hart Trophy contender Macklin Celebrini, who scored on the power play to give San Jose a 1-0 lead.
McDavid answered that goal less than two minutes later, and the Sharks couldn’t slow him down the rest of the night.
“He’s the best player in the league and he’s also the fastest so if you don’t really slow him down or get in his way he’s just going to skate by you,” Celebrini said. “It’s simple as that. You’ve seen it his whole career. I loved watching it when I was a fan but it’s super frustrating when you play against it.”
McDavid’s 133 points this season are six more than Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov in the race for Art Ross Trophy and the second-most McDavid has had in a season to his 153 in 2022-23.
He needs three goals in the final three games for his second career 50-goal season, although his focus remains on bigger goals. Edmonton is two points ahead of Vegas in the division race, but the Golden Knights have a game in hand.
“We’ve got to punch our ticket,” McDavid said. “We’ve got three games left. We’ve still got to punch our ticket to the playoffs. Those individual things are nice but not at the top of mind.”
After making back-to-back trips to the Stanley Cup Final the past two springs, the Oilers have sputtered their way through much of this season. But Edmonton has gone 6-1-1 over the past eight games to move into first place in the Pacific Division.
With high-scoring teammate Leon Draisaitl possibly returning from injury for the start of the postseason, the Oilers are trying to get back into top form in time to make another deep run.
“It’s been kind of an up-and-down year for us, honestly,” McDavid said. “We still feel like our best hockey is ahead of us. We’re kind of finding it right now, which is a good time to do it.”
