TEMPE, Ariz. — Connor McDavid picked up an assist for his 140th point of the season Monday night in the Edmonton Oilers‘ 5-4 victory over the Arizona Coyotes.
McDavid, the All-Star center who is running away in the race for the Hart Trophy as league MVP, became the first player to reach the mark since Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr both achieved it in 1995-96 for the Pittsburgh Penguins. The last Oilers player to do it was Wayne Gretzky in 1987-88. McDavid also became just the seventh player in NHL history with 60 goals and 80 assists in a season.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored the tiebreaking goal with 7:55 remaining as Edmonton helped its cause in the Western Conference playoff race with two points.
“We had a couple of shifts in the third period that we’d like to have back,” Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft said. “But then we got it back in control. In the end, it was not a perfect game, but we walked out with two points.”
Zach Hyman, Bouchard, Darnell Nurse and Leon Draisaitl also scored for the Oilers, who extended their points streak to seven (6-0-1). Jack Campbell stopped 29 shots in the victory.
“We thought we had a real strong second (period),” Hyman said. “We were up in the third and we let it slip away. But we were able to find a way to get it back and win the game so that’s all that matters. But, obviously we want to clean that up.”
Matias Maccelli and Barrett Hayton scored two goals each for the Coyotes, who lost their fifth straight overall and snapped their eight-game home points streak. Lawson Crouse had three assists and Karel Vejmelka finished with 24 saves.
Nugent-Hopkins’ goal was his 34th of the season and came with Arizona’s Clayton Keller in the penalty box for hooking. It was the Oilers’ second power-play goal of the game.
Edmonton entered Monday as the highest-scoring team in the league with 286 goals. The Oilers showed why in the first period with three goals — one on a power play, one short-handed and one at even strength.
Arizona scored first, though, as Maccelli scored his ninth goal from the slot off Campbell’s glove 3:50 into the game.
That didn’t last long as the Coyotes’ Nathan Smith was penalized for holding at 4:34. Just 6 seconds later, Hyman tied it up on a rebound for his 32nd. McDavid had his 80th assist of the season on the play.
Hayton put the Coyotes in front again with a power-play goal with 7:01 left in the period, exactly one minute after Edmonton’s Vincent Desharnais went to the penalty box for holding. But that advantage also went away quickly when Bouchard scored his fifth of the season, on a second-chance goal with 6:26 remaining after Nick Bjugstad drove to the net.
Despite McDavid being in the penalty box for hooking, the Oilers took their first lead on Nurse’s ninth goal at 18:11 when he and Kailer Yamamoto broke in on Vejmelka 2-on-1.
After five goals and six penalties in the first period, the second period had just one goal, when Draisaitl scored his 46th, beating Vejmelka from the faceoff circle to the goalie’s left with 5:28 remaining to push the Oilers’ lead to 4-2.
Maccelli’s goal 3:52 into the third period cut it to 4-3, and Hayton tied it up less than a minute later.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.