On January 2, 2024, Connor McDavid started the new year off with a bang.
Not only did he notch his 10th career five-point game, but he also scored his 900th career point, in only his 602nd game. That made McDavid the 5th fastest player to hit 900 points in league history.
McDavid ended the game with 903 career points, begging the question of whether 1000 points could be possible this year as well. After all, McDavid scored both his 700th and 800th career points last season.
We decided to ask the Oilers faithful how many points they think McDavid will finish the season with. Here is what you said.
981 – 1000 points
The most popular answer, although not by a lot at 43.1%, was that McDavid would finish with somewhere between 981 and 1000 points. That translates from 78 points to 97 points (is that a coincidence?) over the final 46 games.
This would require McDavid to put up between 1.70 to 2.11 points per game.
While those are some gaudy numbers, they are not even close to being out of the realm of possibility for McDavid. After all, his career points per game rate is 1.50.
This season he is currently at 1.61 points per game, and that includes a “slow” start of 13 points in the first 14 games. Since then, he has scored 40 points in 19 games, with only one game without a point, or a 2.11 point per game pace.
Last season, McDavid scored 86 points in his last 46 games, on the way to a historic 153-point season. He had 70 of his 123 points in the last 46 games the year prior. He had 88 of his 106 points in the final 46 games of the shortened 2020–21 season.
So yeah, him scoring another 78 points would not be shocking by any means, given his propensity to heat up in the second half of the season.
961 – 980 Points
This was a close second, at 36.9% of the votes. This makes sense, as it is the most likely option, as seen by the stats above. In order to hit the bottom of this range, McDavid would have to score “just” 58 points in 46 games, or 1.26 points per game.
Let’s be honest, if he did that, it would be considered a disappointment.
As stated above, McDavid’s career average points per game is 1.5, which means over 46 games he would score 69 points (nice). That would put him at 972 points, pretty much dead centre of this range.
It would appear the winner in this poll is one where people are expecting to continue to better himself as he has each year, while this option is people who are being a bit more cautious, likely in part due to his slow start.
1000+ Points
In third place with 12.1% of the votes is McDavid exceeding the 1000th point mark before the end of this season.
Only Connor McDavid would have the hardest possible option having more votes than the easiest possible option.
This would require him to score a minimum of 98 points. It took him only 53 games to get 98 points (and then 100) in the shortened 2020–21 season. It took him 55 games last year to do it. It took him a long 66 games in the year in between.
So it would take McDavid taking this second half of the season to a new level to hit this, which would seem unlikely. Except that taking things to a new unexpected level is kind of McDavid’s thing.
When people said 100 points in the shortened season wasn’t possible, he went ahead and popped 105 in 56 games.
When people talked about Matthews winning the Hart for scoring 60 goals in 73 games, McDavid followed it the next season by scoring 60 in 72, on his way to the first 150+ point season in 27 years (fun fact, McDavid was -1 years old the last time it happened).
So, if as the season goes on and that 1000 points becomes more and more of a possibility? Yeah, I wouldn’t bet against McDavid if he is motivated to do it. Add in the fact that the Oilers need to perform extremely well for the rest of the season to make the playoffs, then you are already going to get a McDavid that is going to be going all out in any event.
940 – 960 Points
In last place with 8.8% is 940 to 960 points, or 37 to 57 points in the final 46 games.
In McDavid’s rookie season, it took him only 36 games to reach 37 points, let alone 46. Even this year, his “slow” start had him hit 37 points in 24 games.
Frankly, it’s kind of insulting we even put an option this low. So I am going to assume that everyone who voted for it was voting for the 960 points, but even that equates to just 1.24 points per game. McDavid has only had two full seasons below that amount – his rookie (1.07) and sophomore (1.22) seasons.
So basically, this option is that McDavid slumps hard and to never-before-seen levels. This is crazy, because this kind of production would still be considered top-line production on any NHL team.
Like I said, it’s crazy that it seems more realistic McDavid would put up over two points per game for the rest of the season than 1.24. Yet here we are.
Photo by Melissa Tamez/Icon Sportswire
