McDavid, Oilers blow past Penguins, 5-1 taken at PPG Paints Arena (Penguins)

JEANINE LEECH / GETTY

Sidney Crosby checks Connor McDavid during the Oilers' 5-1 victory Tuesday night.

Penguins

McDavid, Oilers blow past Penguins, 5-1

By Dave Molinari

Apr 27, 2022 • 1:34 am

2.4K

Trying to defend Connor McDavid is like trying to grab a fistful of water.

His offensive game is simply too diverse, too dynamic to be contained on most nights.

Especially this one.

McDavid flashed his exceptional hand skills during a power play midway through the third period of the Oilers' 5-1 victory at PPG Paints Arena Tuesday, when he stuck a shot under the crossbar behind Casey DeSmith from low in the left circle.

His sublime vision, instincts and creativity were evident throughout the evening, even when he wasn't padding his personal line score with three assists.

But those are not the qualities that cement McDavid, who entered the NHL in 2015 as the league's most celebrated newcomer since Sidney Crosby, as a generational talent.

For it is not just the things that he can do -- but rather, the speed at which he can do them -- that makes the deepest and most enduring impression, as it surely did on the Penguins.

"His pace-of-play ... he's so fast," Mike Sullivan said. "He's tough to handle. If you give him too much ice, he can pick you apart. If you get too tight to him, he can beat you with wide-speed. That's the challenge when you play against him. He has dynamic, explosive speed and he has the ability to execute, make plays, at a high rate of speed."

McDavid's four-point night was his third of the season and swelled his league-leading points total to 122, all but assuring him of his fourth NHL scoring title.

He also became the first player to record 45 multiple-point games in a season since Jaromir Jagr, then with the Penguins, did it in 1995-96.

Two of those games came against the Penguins; he also put up a goal and three assists in Edmonton's 5-2 victory on home ice Dec. 1.

"He's a real good player," Marcus Pettersson said. "We have to do a better job of staying close to him. We gave him too much room, I think."

Perhaps, but as Sullivan noted, if a defender tries to crowd him, McDavid has a burst that can allow him to blow past his opponent.

While the Penguins are aware that, barring a meeting in the Stanley Cup final, they won't have to deal with McDavid again until next season, they still don't know on whom they will be focusing their attention in less than a week.

With one game remaining in the regular season -- Friday, against the Blue Jackets at PPG Paints Arena -- the Penguins still could finish third or fourth in the Metropolitan Division, which will determine who they will face in Round 1 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

They currently are third, one point ahead of the Capitals, who have two games left. If the Penguins stay there, they will meet the Rangers in Round 1. Should they drop to fourth (and thus, the second wild card in the Eastern Conference), they will take on the Panthers, who won the Atlantic Division.

Dropping two points to Edmonton was the Penguins' second defeat in a row and surely stung, but it might not have been their most significant loss.

Second-line left winger Jason Zucker's star-crossed season continued when he left the game late in the opening period because of an unspecified lower-body injury.

His departure scuttled Sullivan's most recent overhaul of his forward lines, and left a sample size too small to offer much insight on whether a unit with Evgeni Malkin between Zucker and Rickard Rakell has the potential to be productive.

However, at least one thing was clear by the time Zucker departed: The Oilers can get around the ice as quickly as any team in the league, operating at speeds that sometimes prompted the Penguins to rush decisions or puck movements.

"They're a really fast team," Pettersson said. "They have some speedy wingers. Down the middle, they're fast. ... I think we're fast, too, but they just got the better of us in the speed department today."

The Rangers' team speed also gave the Penguins fits at times when they played three times recently, so coping with an opponent that skates well figures to get considerable attention from the coaching staff before the playoffs begin.

It presumably is scant consolation for the Penguins that, barring a meeting with the Oilers in the Stanley Cup final, they won't have to contend with McDavid again until next season.

By then, McDavid will have had another opportunity to lead the Oilers to postseason success for the first time since he reached the NHL; Edmonton is 1-2 in playoff series since he joined the payroll.

The Oilers obviously shouldn't count on getting four points from him in every game this spring, but as McDavid reminded the hockey world Tuesday, he's capable of doing just that against a pretty accomplished opponent.

"He's the best player in the world," Edmonton winger Zach Hyman told reporters. "That's what you expect. That's what you get."

MORE FROM THE GAME

• Jeff Carter got the Penguins' only goal at 5:23 of the second period, when he collected the carom of a Mike Matheson shot off the back boards and tossed the puck in from the left side of the crease. It was his 23rd goal and 37th point in 37 career games against Edmonton.

• Just 25 seconds after Carter tied the game, 1-1, Evander Kane scored what proved to be the game-winner, as the Penguins had yet another defensive letdown less than a minute after scoring a goal. "Obviously, we have to make something happen, because playoffs are right around the corner," Kasperi Kapanen said. "We have to perform. We can't be making these kinds of mistakes, allowing ourselves to be trailing the game a lot. That's something we just have to clean up. How to do it, I'm not sure."

• Video coach Andy Saucier probably had the best night of anyone associated with the Penguins. He initiated video reviews that led to two Edmonton goals, by Evan Bouchard and Derick Brassard, being waved off because the scoring play was deemed to be offside. Saucier is 7-for-7 on such challenges this season.

• Spotting Edmonton the first goal did not bode well for the Penguins. The Oilers are 29-3-1 when opening the scoring.

• The Penguins had a brutal night on special teams, as Edmonton scored on two of four power plays while the Penguins were 0-for-4 with the extra man. The Penguins have scored just two man-advantage goals in their past 12 games.

• Several players noted that the Penguins did not have effective dump-ins to the Edmonton zone. That allowed goalie Mike Smith to get the puck and move it to a teammate, which stymied the Penguins' forecheck. "We gave him the puck too much," Pettersson said.

• Members of the Jake Guentzel-Crosby-Bryan Rust line did not figure in the Penguins' lone goal, but did account for 13 of the team's 34 shots. "They had a lot of really good looks, 5-on-5," Sullivan said. "They didn't score, but they did everything, but."

• Smith, who is an excellent puck-handler, tried to score into the empty net with a little more than 2 1/2 minutes left in regulation, but his shot skidded just wide of the right post.

• Oilers defenseman Duncan Keith recorded five of his club's 18 blocked shots.

• The Penguins were 29-27 on faceoffs, even though Malkin lost all six that he handled.

• Penguins Hall of Fame defenseman Paul Coffey, now a consultant with the Oilers, attended the game. In addition to his work with Edmonton, Coffey said he is involved in a waste management company that operates across Canada.

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