Connor McDavid had four points and the Edmonton Oilers clinched a playoff spot with a 5-3 win over the Vancouver Canucks on Monday.
The Oilers captain had two goal and two assists and Jesse Puljujarvi had one of each. Tyson Barrie and Dominik Kahun also scored for Edmonton (31-17-2), and Leon Draisaitl notched a pair of assists.
McDavid leads the NHL in scoring with 91 points (31 goals, 60 assists).
Nate Schmidt and J.T. Miller scored for the Canucks (19-24-3), who saw their losing skid stretch to five games.
The Oilers hold a 4-2 edge in the season series between the two sides with four games to go.
Edmonton sits second in the North Division, eight points back of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Vancouver remains at the bottom of the all-Canadian group’s standings with nine games to go.
WATCH | Oilers clinch playoff spot with win over Canucks:
With the shortened season almost over, Rob Pizzo has already run out of spots for jaw-dropping McDavid plays. 2:24
Chicago bounced the Oilers from the play-in round in a five-game series last season.
Vancouver pulled Holtby with 3:29 left on the clock and the move immediately paid off with Boeser sent a bullet soaring past Koskinen off a face-off draw.
The right-winger leads the Canucks in scoring with 38 points (18 goals, 20 assists).
McDavid sealed the score at 5-3, burying an empty-net strike with 1:00 to go in the game.
WATCH | 9 ridiculous Connor McDavid highlights from this season…in 90 seconds:
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Edmonton becomes the 2nd team in the North Division to clinch a playoff spot with a 5-3 victory over Vancouver. Connor McDavid records 2 goals and 2 assists for a 4-point game. 1:06
Kahun closed out the second period with a blast past Holtby, making it 4-2 for Edmonton with 44.1 seconds left on the clock.
Miller had briefly narrowed the Oilers lead to 3-2 with his 12th goal of the year.
Vancouver’s second of the night came 17:16 into the second when Miller tucked a backhanded shot under Koskinen’s outstretched glove from the top of the crease.
…Connor McDavid🤯<a href=”https://twitter.com/cmcdavid97?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@cmcdavid97</a> became the third player in NHL history to record 30 goals and 60 assists in 50 games or fewer. His company? Pretty good. <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/NHLStats?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#NHLStats</a> <a href=”https://t.co/i83m4d6qo3″>pic.twitter.com/i83m4d6qo3</a>
—@PR_NHL
Just 41 seconds earlier, McDavid picked off a Canucks pass in the neutral zone, skated into Vancouver territory and blasted a shot at Holtby. The netminder initially seemed to make a glove save, but the puck trickled through and his attempt to dive backward and sweep it off the goal line was unsuccessful.
Holtby stopped a shot from Puljujarvi but couldn’t corral the rebound. Barrie scooped up the puck at the top of the crease and quickly popped it in for his eighth goal of the season.
The Canucks tied the game at 1-1 before the end of the first, thanks to Schmidt’s fifth goal of the season.
The defenceman took advantage of a net-front screen by rookie Nils Hoglander and rifled a shot from the top of the left face-off circle, beating Koskinen on his blocker side.
In our weekly segment, Rob Pizzo catches you up on the week that was in the all-Canadian division in the NHL. 3:29