A week in hockey that began and unfolded beneath a dark shadow cast by fisticuffs and fines ended with the game’s truest marker of a great season, from its most exciting player. That it happened on Saturday on “Hockey Night in Canada,” the closest thing the nation has to appointment television, and in Edmonton, Alberta, the center of so many of the sport’s most lasting achievements by the best to play the game, befitted Wayne Gretzky’s successor. That it happened so quickly was astonishing: Connor McDavid reached 100 points in 53 games. Only four times has a player reached 100 points in fewer games in the past 30 years, and no one has done it in 25 years. Mario Lemieux accomplished the feat twice in 38 games, in 1992-93 and 1995-96; Gretzky did it in 50 games in 1990-91; and Jaromir Jagr reached it in 52 games in 1995-96.

Source: New York Times May 09, 2021 18:00 UTC