EDMONTON, Alberta — Up on the plains of Alberta, they’re ready for historical past and it almost got here on Tuesday evening.
Particularly, they’re ready to see Connor McDavid attain 1,000 factors — and develop into the quickest participant to take action since Canadian groups had been successful Stanley Cups frequently.
McDavid began Tuesday’s sport, the 657th sport of his profession, on 995 factors and completed on 999 after recording a degree on all 4 of Edmonton’s objectives in a 4-3 extra time loss for the Islanders.
He’ll virtually assuredly develop into the fourth-fastest participant ever to hit 1,000, with Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux and Mike Bossy the one ones to take action at a faster fee.
“I hate to go back in time, because the guys who were playing at the time, that’s what they had,” mentioned Islanders coach Patrick Roy, who performed in opposition to all three of these luminaries, earlier than the sport. “Now now we have video, we are able to watch video games, step-by-step on their skating and within the sport. So the sport is evolving very quick and you bought numerous methods to investigate groups.
“Certainly to answer your question, he deserves a lot of credit for what he’s doing. Same thing with [Alex] Ovechkin, trying to surpass Wayne Gretzky’s [goals] record. It’s pretty impressive. Nobody thought that would be possible and here they are. These guys are showing a lot of talent.”
McDavid, who’s now again on a point-per-game tempo with 13 in 13 after what was an allegedly gradual begin to his season, was nothing wanting sensible in recording eight photographs on purpose, three assists and a highlight-reel backhand purpose in opposition to the Islanders.
In fact, they’re used to such exploits in Edmonton.
“I don’t remember the first time I saw him play, but I’m seeing a lot of him lately, I can tell you that,” Roy mentioned. “He’s got so much speed and skills. We were watching plays on the power play, moves he could make, even at five on five. When you let him pick up speed, he’s a very dangerous player.”
It initially appeared that Ilya Sorokin and Semyon Varlamov would have a roughly 50/50 cut up of begins, however Tuesday marked the fifth sport in six that Sorokin has began, although Patrick Roy mentioned Varlamov seemingly would play on Thursday evening in Vancouver. Sorokin confronted 42 photographs and made 38 saves.
“We have two really good goalies. I think we knew that Ilya would probably have the upper hand and he’ll play probably more games than Varly,” Roy mentioned. “So nothing is really changing for us.”
Alexander Romanov (higher physique) continued to skate in a non-contact jersey Tuesday morning.
