Edmonton Oilers at the Worlds: Connor McDavid erupts with spectacular hat trick
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Connor McDavid is finding the big international ice surface to his liking. Now there‘s a surprise.
McDavid took advantage of some wide open spaces on Thursday, netting three of his team’s five goals and earning Player of the Game honours as Canada rolled to a 5-0 shutout over Norway.
The two-time NHL scoring champion dangled at will against the overmatched Norwegians, scoring all 3 of his goals and taking all of his game-high 6 shots on net before the midway mark of the second before calling off the dogs thereafter. But it was quite a show up until then.
McDavid opened the scoring just 1:23 in on a solo play where he ragged the puck for fully a dozen seconds, ducking in behind the net, surveying his options, walking back out into the slot, changing his shooting angle, and ripping a wrist shot high on the stick side of Lars Haugen. Too easy. The poor Norwegians were so busy covering possible pass receivers that they left McDavid little choice but to shoot himself.
Following a (superb!) shorthanded goal by Bo Horvat, McDavid struck again, this time fishing the puck out of a defender’s skates on a scrambled zone entry, bursting into the slot, getting tripped but shooting while falling and again beating Haugen high on the stick side.
He completed the hat trick — the first in the tournament by any player — with another individual effort eight minutes into the second, grabbing a loose puck behind the goal line, absolutely losing his man with a quick shift, walking out from behind the net to test Haugen from close range, then depositing his own rebound.
With his third consecutive three-point outing, McDavid moved into a tie for third place in the tournament scoring race with 4-6-10. Obviously in a tourney featuring teams of varying strengths not all points are created equal, but as the old saw has it, the only team you can beat is the one you’re playing tonight. Once the game was safely in hand, McDavid played just 4:29 in the final frame as Bill Peters used his entire bench; for example 13th forward Tyson Jost played 5:19 in the third after just one shift in the opening frame.
By night’s end Ryan Nugent-Hopkins led all Canadian forwards in ice time at 18:22, 2 seconds more than McDavid. RNH earned an assist on McDavid’s hat trick goal and also played a role away from the puck on his first.
Defender Darnell Nurse played an efficient 15 minutes on the third pairing, posting a +2 with no points.
Speaking of the tournament scoring race, another familiar name is tied for fifth place, after Leon Draisaitl scored 3 points of his own in Germany’s 6-1 win over South Korea Wednesday. Draisaitl scored a goal on a hard shot from the slot to open the scoring, then set up two others with a forehand pass from the right corner and a backhand dish from the left corner. He had the puck on his stick time and again, as his high end skills to win loose pucks and maintain control while fending off checkers allows him to dominate lesser opponents. Germany has scored 12 goals to this point in the tourney and Leon has been in on 8 of them, not counting the “third assist” he didn’t receive official credit for on the second German goal Wednesday.
Draisaitl oh-so-briefly pulled ahead of his Edmonton teammate McDavid in the scoring race until Canada caught up its game in hand today. All teams in the tourney have now played 4 games.
Meanwhile Adam Larsson didn’t get suspended for his high hit vs. France. He played a quieter game as Sweden whitewashed Austria 7-0, but posted a +4 rating to raise his total in that department to +10, tied for the tournament lead. He has been on the ice for 10 goals for and 0 against. Any questions?
Finally, since our last report Slovak captain Andrej Sekera has seen his team turn the corner with a pair of victories, 4-2 over Austria and 3-1 vs. France. Slovakia is now right in the hunt for a spot in the quarterfinals. Of course the standings tell only part of the story, and the remaining schedule tells another. Slovakia, like Germany, will face two group powers in their remaining three games and will need to pull out an unexpected result at some point.
While some of the games have been one-sided, there have been a few upsets or quasi-upsets in recent days. Today Russia fell 4-3 to Czechia in overtime, while the USA dropped a point against Latvia, needing an overtime powerplay to resolve that affair, 3-2. A bigger surprise occurred Wednesday when the host Danes beat Nordic rival Finland 3-2 in regulation on a late goal. So unexpected results are indeed possible.
Statistics for all Oilers through 4 GP:
Connor McDavid, CAN — 4–6–10, +7, 12 shots, 17:34 ATOI
Leon Draisaitl, GER — 2-6–8, +4, 9 shots, 21:17 ATOI
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, CAN — 3-1-4, +5, 17 shots, 17:10 ATOI
Andrej Sekera, SVK — 1-1-2, -1, 6 shots, 21:33 ATOI
Adam Larsson, SWE — 0-2-2, +10, 5 shots, 21:57 ATOI
Darnell Nurse, CAN — 0-1-1, +5, 4 shots, 15:52 ATOI
[Bold = leads team;
Italics= leads team’s forwards]
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