Sam Navarro-USA TODAY Sports
The Stanley Cup Final is headed back to Edmonton, and some history from Connor McDavid is a big reason why
The Stanley Cup Final is headed back to Edmonton, as the Oilers became just the fourth team in NHL history to force a Game 6 after dropping the first three games of the series. Edmonton’s 5-3 road win on Tuesday night keeps their title dreams alive, and extends their season by at least one more game.
In the win, Connor McDavid made some NHL history of his own.
During the second period Tuesday night, McDavid notched both a goal and an assist for a “three-point period”. That makes the second such period for McDavid in this Stanley Cup Final, as the Oilers star joined Bernie Geoffrion and Stan Mikita as the only players to record a pair of three-point periods in a Stanley Cup Final.
Geoffrion accomplished the feat twice, first in Game 6 of the 1955 Stanley Cup Final with the Montreal Canadiens, and then during Game 4 of the 1959 Final, also with Montreal. As for Mikita, his first three-point period came in Game 5 of the 1961 Final, and his second was in Game 5 of the 1973 Final, both coming with Mikita playing for the Chicago Blackhawks.
However, while Geoffrion and Mikita posted three-point periods years apart, McDavid did it in back-to-back games. In Game 4 McDavid notched a goal and a pair of assists in the second period, giving him four points on the period.
That was not the only history McDavid made Tuesday night. He also became the first No. 1 overall selection in the NHL Draft to score a goal in the Stanley Cup Final in the same building where he was drafted. The 2015 NHL Draft was held at the BB&T Center (now the Amerant Bank Arena), and McDavid was the first-overall selection by the Oilers.
McDavid also has ten points over the first five games of the Stanley Cup Final, becoming the first active player with ten points in a Stanley Cup Final.
Edmonton and McDavid will hope to make a little more history over these next few days. By forcing a Game 6, the Oilers are now the fourth team to force a Game 6 after losing the first three games of a Stanley Cup Final, and Edmonton is the only team to force a Game 6 in this situation by winning Game 5 on the road:
Can they join the Toronto Maple Leafs as the only team to come back and win the series after dropping the first three games?
They might need even more history from McDavid to pull that off.
