Edmonton Oilers’ Connor McDavid scores 50th goal of the season

Edmonton Oilers center Connor McDavid reached a significant milestone, scoring his 50th goal of the season on Monday night against the Boston Bruins.

in his 61st game of the season, connor mcdavid has his 50th goal. pic.twitter.com/zPN2WQlPef

— zach (@zjlaing) February 28, 2023

The Oilers captain achieved the feat midway through the second period by taking advantage of a defensive lapse by the Bruins during a stretch of 4-on-4 hockey. Klim Kostin retrieved a Cody Ceci dump-in, skated around the net, and set up McDavid in the slot, where he then deked around Jeremy Swayman and buried it into the back of the net. It was his second goal of the night, as he had another one to open the scoring in the first period.

Despite the video game point totals that McDavid has put up throughout his career, it’s the first time that he’s hit the 50-goal plateau in a season. He had hit the 40 goal mark three times, with a career high of 44 in 2021-22.

On top of the 50 goals, McDavid has 65 assists and 115 points, and is well on pace to break his career-high totals. It’s already the third highest point total of his career, only a point back of tying his second, and eight points away from breaking his career high of 123 from last year, all with 21 games still left to play.

This is just another example of how McDavid has more than lived up to the hype that came with him as the consensus first-overall pick in 2015, as he has continued to carve out a magnificent career in Edmonton. It’s now his eighth season with the team, and he currently is in the fifth year of an eight-year contract with a $12.5 million cap hit, the highest cap hit in the league until Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon’s $12.6 million contract kicks in next season.

Despite McDavid’s success, the Oilers haven’t had nearly as much success as a team up until the last couple seasons, so there’s a lot of pressure for the Oilers to win while both McDavid and Leon Draisaitl are in their primes. They sat in third in the Pacific Division with a 32-20-8 record going into Monday’s game against the Bruins.