EDMONTON, Alberta — On the Alberta plains, they were waiting for history, and it almost arrived Tuesday night.
Specifically, they're waiting for Connor McDavid to reach 1,000 points and become the fastest player to do so since a Canadian team regularly won the Stanley Cup.
McDavid started Tuesday's game, his 657th career game, with 995 points and finished with 999 points, scoring all four of Edmonton's goals as the Islanders lost 4-3 in overtime.
He will almost certainly become the fourth-fastest player in history to reach 1,000, with only Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux and Mike Bossy doing it faster.
“I don't want to go back in time because that's what happened to the players that were playing back then,” Islanders coach Patrick Roy, who played against all three great players, said before the game. told. “Now we have video and you can see them skating and watching them step-by-step during the game. I mean, the game is evolving so quickly and there are so many ways to analyze teams.
“Certainly to answer your question, what he's doing is highly commendable. Same thing. [Alex] Ovechkin on track to surpass Wayne Gretzky [goals] record. That's pretty impressive. No one thought it would be possible, but here it is. They display a lot of talent. ”
McDavid, who was said to have been off to a slow start in the season, is back on track with 13 points in 13 games, eight shots on target, three assists and a highlight-reel backhand goal. He achieved great results. against the islanders.
Of course, they're used to that kind of exploitation in Edmonton.
“I don't remember the first time I saw him play, but I've been watching him a lot lately, I can tell you that,” Roy said. “He's got a lot of speed and skill. We saw the moves he could make on the power play, even 5-on-5. When you give him some speed, he becomes a very dangerous player. It will become.”
It was initially thought that Ilya Sorokin and Semyon Varlamov would be split into starts, but while Tuesday marked Sorokin's fifth of six starts, Patrick Roy announced that Varlamov would start on Thursday night. He said he is likely to play in Vancouver. Sorokin faced 42 shots and made 38 saves.
“We have two really good goalkeepers. I think we knew that Ilya was probably going to have the upper hand and probably play more games than Varley,” Roy said. “So nothing has changed for us.”
Alexander Romanov (upper body) continued skating Tuesday morning in a non-contact jersey.
