Instant Reaction: Oilers explode with season-high nine goals in dominant win over Sharks

Off a faceoff, Adam Henrique picked up a loose puck off a rebound and buried it for his sixth goal as an Oiler. He also picked up two assists. There is not really much else to say other than this trade appears to be a pretty big win, especially if he is re-signed.

Warren Foegle made it a 3-0 lead for his 18th goal of the season, deciding to shoot it on a 2-on-1 to beat the poor, poor, Sharks netminder. This goal continued to add to his career highs in both points and goals.

Dylan Holloway was called up on an emergency basis, and has proved to be a player who could really help this team in the playoffs and next season. He scored his fifth goal of the season on Monday, being the beneficiary of a nice passing play.

The Sharks squeaked one by netminder Stuart Skinner, but who cares? Foegele answered less than a minute later, scoring his second goal of the game. This was his fifth multi-goal game of the season and the 13th of his career. However, he has yet to score a hat trick.

The Holloway-McLeod-Perry line scored another goal. Holloway made a cross-ice pass to Ryan McLeod, who found Corey Perry on the doorstep. This was their nicest goal of the night and this line rocks. Let’s hope they stay together next season as a very good third line.

Cody Ceci, for some reason, received a pass on the doorstep. He easily buried it for his fifth goal of the season, matching the number on his back. In hindsight, keeping him at the trade deadline may have been the right decision.

Less than a minute later (again), Evan Bouchard basically scored the exact same goal as Ceci just had. Perry and Holloway both got assists on it. Like I said, this has the making of a really good third line, but they’ll need to re-sign Perry.

Probably the biggest news piece of the night is when Connor McDavid picked up his 100th assist of the season, becoming just the fourth player to ever do so. It was a pretty similar goal to the past two goals, but it was a forward, Zach Hyman, on the receiving end of the cross-crease pass.

The Sharks scored a goal at the end of the game during garbage time, but things were so out of reach by that point it isn’t even worth talking about. The Oilers cruised to a 9-2 win and Connor McDavid made history. 

Things worth mentioning…

Connor McDavid picked up a goal and an assist, bringing him to 132 points for the season, well out of the race for the Art Ross trophy. This sadly ended his four-season streak of winning the trophy. McDavid also became the fourth player in league history to record 100 assists in a single season, joining Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, and Bobby Orr. 

Warren Foegele pushed for his first career hat-trick. Like, really pushed for it. He had eight shots on the night but, once again, fell short. Doesn’t matter, please re-sign him.

A loss to Vancouver on Saturday pretty much guarantees the Oilers to miss out on the top spot in the Pacific, but they sit just three points behind them with the same number of games played. If Vancouver picks up a point in any of their remaining two games, or the Oilers miss out on a point, they’ll play one of Los Angeles or the Vegas Golden Knights.

Up next: The Oilers return to action on Wednesday at 8 PM MT, as they’ll head to the desert to play the Arizona Coyotes. This will likely be the last game in the Phoenix area for quite some time, so that is kind of sad. In their last game, they’ll play a back-to-back against the Colorado Avalanche at 7:30 PM MT.