McDavid & Draisaitl match a mark last hit by Wayne Gretzky & Jari Kurri.

McDavid and Draisaitl join truly elite company.

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 4 years ago
McDavid & Draisaitl match a mark last hit by Wayne Gretzky & Jari Kurri.
Damon Tarver/CSM/Zuma

Everyone knows that the Edmonton Oilers have two of the most special players in the National Hockey League on their roster right now, I am of course referring to superstar forwards Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. Although everyone knows that both men are special the start they are having to this current season is now unlike any the Oilers have seen in decades and in fact the two superstars have just joined some truly elite company. 

After suffering a loss to the Vancouver Canucks over the weekend the Oilers regrouped on Sunday and, with the help of some significant line changes from Edmonton Oilers head coach Dave Tippett, they managed to pull out a come from behind victory in the rematch on Sunday. It was a big night for the Oilers as a whole but there may have been no one that it meant more for than the aforementioned duo of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. 

The game propelled both men beyond the 50 point marker this season and although that is an outstanding individual accomplishment so early into a National Hockey League regular season, to have two players on the same team reach that marker so quickly is truly astounding. How good is it you may ask? Well according to Sportsnet's Stats the last pair of players on an Oilers roster to reach the 50 point mark prior to playing 30 regular season games are two relative unknowns who go by the names of Wayne Gretzky and Jari Kurri. Yeah, that is some pretty elite company to be keeping. 

In case you have not noticed it has been quite some time since either of those men played in the National Hockey League and you would have to go all the way back to the 1984 - 1985 regular season to witness the last time a pair of Oilers teammates reached the milestone. I'm willing to bet that a significant portion of our readers were not even born at that time, which should really hammer home how incredible an achievement this truly is.

Now to be clear I'm not trying to suggest that McDavid and Draisaitl are as good as Gretzky and Kurri and in fact I'm not even trying to compare the two duos in any way. It certainly does shine a bright light on the future that both these young men are likely to carve out in the NHL however. 

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