Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid of Richmond Hill, Ontario notched his 11th National Hockey League career hat trick on Saturday. He scored thrice in a 5-2 Edmonton win over Calgary Flames in the first battle of Alberta to begin the 2021-22 National Hockey League regular season.
McDavid scored his first goal of the game with two minutes and 31 seconds left in the first period from Jesse Puljujarvi and Leon Draisaitl on the power-play to put the Oilers up 2-0. McDavid then scored the game-winning goal at 5:33 of the second period from Darnell Nurse of Hamilton, Ontario and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins of Burnaby, British Columbia in an all-Canadian goal to put the Oilers up 3-0. McDavid then completed the scoring with an empty-netter at 18:23 of the third period from Puljujarvi and Draisaitl.
Puljujarvi and Draisaitl also had three points. Puljujarvi had one goal and two assists, while Draisaitl had three assists. The other Oilers goal scorer was Derek Ryan, who scored his first goal in an Oilers uniform.
This was McDavid’s third career hat trick against the Flames. He also scored thrice on October 4, 2017 in a 3-0 Edmonton win, and on February 20, 2021, in a 7-1 Oilers win.
Edmonton has now won their first two games to start the 2021-22 NHL season. They previously beat the Vancouver Canucks 3-2 in a shootout. In that contest, McDavid had two assists.
