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January 13, 2024 by Ryan Lotsberg
Today is Connor McDavid’s 27th birthday. His Edmonton Oilers will play against the Montreal Canadiens on Hockey Night in Canada. The Oilers have a chance to set a new franchise record with their tenth consecutive win tonight.
This is the third time that McDavid will have played an NHL game on his birthday. He has a 2-1 record with five points in those three games.
McDavid celebrated his 21st birthday in 2018 in style. He scored his 200th point on his 21st birthday in Las Vegas. He recorded two assists, including a secondary assist on Drake Caggiula’s game-tying goal. Darnell Nurse scored the game winning goal in overtime.
McDavid was held pointless in a 5-3 loss to the Vancouver Canucks on his 24th birthday in 2021.
Finally, McDavid scored two goals and added an assist in a 7-1 drubbing of the San Jose Sharks on his 26th birthday last season.
The Oilers currently sit in the second wild card position in the Western Conference with a 22-15-1 record (45 points), which is pretty amazing considering the team started 3-9-1 and made a coaching change. They are currently enjoying their second win streak of eight or more games this season. New Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch is the first NHL coach to have two such streaks in his first season.
Meanwhile, the Montreal Canadiens sit seven points back of a wild card position in the Eastern Conference with a 17-18-6 record (40 points). They do have two games in hand on the Tampa Bay Lightning, who currently hold the second wild card spot. The Canadiens struggle to score goals. They sit in 28th place in the league with 111 goals in 41 games. They have allowed the eighth most goals in the league so far this season with 138 despite decent goaltending from Samuel Montembault (.907 save percentage, 2.04 GAA).
Montembault will face Stuart Skinner (.901 save percentage, 2.69 GAA), who has been stellar recently with a 13-2 record in his last fifteen starts.
As he told the media in Montreal today, all he wants for his birthday is a tenth consecutive win. I would expect nothing less from our captain! Happy birthday Connor!
