Oilers’ McDavid scores 400th goal, becomes third-fastest player to hit 1,200th point

It was a milestone game for the Edmonton Oilers in their 5-2 win over the Utah Mammoth on Tuesday night.

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins kicked things off by scoring his 800th NHL point, assisting on Jack Roslovic’s first goal of the game, only to be usurped by two big milestones for Connor McDavid.

He hit both of them on goals, scoring the 400th goal of his career, becoming the 115th player in NHL history to do so, and the fifth player in Oilers history, while also notching his 1,200th career point with an empty-net tally in his 784th game. He became the third-fastest player to hit the 1,200-point mark, trailing just Wayne Gretzky (504 games) and Mario Lemieux (593 games).

“It is a big number, obviously,” said McDavid after the game. “I feel like I have a lot of great years ahead of me still, which is exciting. Incredibly grateful to have played with so many great players to knock off some of these milestones.”

The goals were McDavid’s 39th and 40th of the season, which gave him his fifth 40-goal season, surpassing Glenn Anderson (four) for the fourth most in Oilers history. Ahead of him are Leon Draisaitl (six), Jari Kurri (seven) and Gretzky (nine).

His first goal was halfway through the second period, and just eight seconds after the Mammoth tied the game at 2. McDavid won a centre-ice faceoff back to Evan Bouchard, who sent the puck across to Mattias Ekholm, who fired a bouncing pass into the offensive zone for a streaking McDavid. Unable to corral it, he fired off a flubbed shot that went over the shoulder of Mammoth netminder Karel Vejmelka. His second goal came with eight seconds left in the game on an empty net.

McDavid has been nothing short of a consistent scorer since he entered the league at 18 years old in the 2015-16 season, averaging 1.53 points per game across his 784 games. He’s up to a 1.64 point-per-game pace this season, now up to 40 goals and 118 points.