POST-GAME: Oilers trio joins 300-goal club in successive victories

EDMONTON, AB - Three-hundred tucks in the National Hockey League is nothing to shake your head at.
For the Edmonton Oilers, having three separate players achieve the feat -- all one after the other within a three-game span -- is a testament to the firepower this club has at its disposal for the impending Stanley Cup Playoffs, while also lending to the reality that there's still plenty left for Connor McDavid, Evander Kane and Leon Draisaitl to accomplish over their careers.
A simple and comforting fact for Oilers fans is that the trio will seek out further milestones and accolades together much the benefit of the Blue & Orange over the coming seasons.
The trio of elite Oilers forwards entered Monday night's match against the Arizona Coyotes at Mullet Arena earlier this week equal at 299 goals for their respective NHL careers, with no team ever having three separate players score their 300th goal in the same game in league history.
Two pairs of teammates had done it before, with club legend Ryan Smyth and Milan Hejduk last doing it on Jan. 18, 2009 as members of the Colorado Avalanche, but McDavid, Kane and Draisaitl spaced out their 'tercentenaries' of goals over consecutive nights at important moments of Edmonton's three-game win streak, surging the Oilers up the Pacific Division standings in the process.

Draisaitl's 300th on Monday came off a failed clearance attempt back from Arizona defenceman Josh Brown, who couldn't get the puck out of the Coyotes' zone and instead put it right on the Burger Flipper for the German to bury a quick unassisted half-clapper into the net for a 4-2 lead and the only goal of the second period of Edmonton's 5-4 victory.
"Yeah, it's cool that [No. 300] is a nice milestone to hit," Draisaitl said post-game. "Hopefully that wasn't [the last]."

Draisaitl was back the next game feeding Kane for his milestone goal versus the Vegas Golden Knights by leading an offensive-zone entry for the Oilers with a slick dangle around defenceman Alec Martinez before sending a delicious back-hand dish through the legs of Alex Pietrangelo to the 31-year-old for his own 300th career NHL tuck and the eventual game-winning goal.
On Thursday night against the Kings, Kane scored the game-winner and supplied seven hits just in the first period alone.
"Kaner's game I think is rounding into form right now," Head Coach Jay Woodcroft said. "He's always been known as a big-game player, and in these last two, he's shown at the level that he can play at.
"The good news is there's not a lot of miles on that chassis this year. He's just kind of rounding into form at the right time of year, and we need him."

But leave it up to McDavid to upstage them both.
The captain was kind to let his teammates Draisaitl and Kane score their 300th NHL goals first while in the midst of a mystifying, magical offensive season that now reads 61 goals, 83 assists and 144 points in 76 games, but McDavid didn't spare Los Angeles any sort of friendly gesture when he weaved through the Kings' line of defence shorthanded to score his milestone marker early in the third period of a one-goal game.
The last tally that McDavid had put into the back of the net was his 60th of the season -- a spectacular first for him during his career to become one of four active NHLers to have reached the marker -- and it came off the second effort from both himself and Draisaitl in overtime at Rogers Place against Arizona.
On his 300th career goal Thursday night, McDavid took it all the way himself by picking off an errant power-play pass from Sean Durzi and dangling two partially-stationary Kings forwards in Trevor Moore and Victor Arvidsson before looking back to see he had all the time he needed to slow down and pick his spot on netminder Joonas Korpisalo shorthanded 3:53 into the third period.

McDavid's marker was Edmonton's league-leading 15th shorthanded goal and mirrored the insurance tally he scored in Game 7 of their first-round series with Los Angeles last season, except this time around, it provided the much-needed sigh of relief in a tight game that Oilers players and fans needed at the beginning of the period rather than the dying minutes of last year's win-or-go-home post-season scenario.
Thursday's Pacific Division tilt at Rogers Place offered a look at what has the potential to be a rematch between the Kings and Oilers in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, but Edmonton has its sights firmly set on wrestling first place away from the Golden Knights with two points between them and six games left on the regular-season slate.
Next up on the list of Oilers players to hit 300 goals is Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who's recorded 231 on 795 career games.