Ever since being picked first overall in 2015, Connor McDavid has been the face of the Edmonton Oilers. As he enters his 10th NHL season, McDavid is looking to finally capture the Stanley Cup, the one notable omission in his already overflowing trophy cabinet. While you probably already know quite a bit about McDavid, let’s still take a look at his career to date.
McDavid’s playing career
McDavid was granted exceptional status by the Ontario Hockey League, allowing him to be drafted at the age of 15 instead of 16. He was the third player in history to be granted exceptional status, after John Tavares and Aaron Ekblad.
McDavid was selected first overall by the Erie Otters and scored 25 goals and 66 points in 62 games, finishing second in team scoring to Connor Brown by three points, winning the OHL Rookie of the Year.
The next season, McDavid would score 28 goals and 99 points in 56 games, along with 19 points in 14 playoff games.
McDavid was named team captain in his final season and posted 44 goals and 120 points in just 47 games, including scoring a point in all but two games. He would then score 49 points in just 20 playoff games, eventually losing in the OHL finals.
After being drafted first overall, McDavid scored 12 points in his first 13 NHL games before breaking his clavicle, causing him to miss 37 games. He would return and score 36 points in his remaining 32 games.
McDavid was named team captain prior to his second season, making him the youngest in NHL history. He would make good on that honour, scoring 100 points (the only player in the league to do so that year) and won the Hart, the Art Ross, and Ted Lindsey Trophies. The Oilers made the playoffs for the first time in 11 years and made it to the second round before bowing out to the Anaheim Ducks. McDavid finished third on the team in scoring with nine points in 13 games.
McDavid would go on to score 100 plus points in six of the next seven seasons, scoring 97 in 64 games in 2019–20 before the NHL season shut down due to COVID-19. Granted, that could be offset by the ridiculous 105 points he scored in 56 games in the shortened season the year after. He would also win another four Art Ross Trophies, three more Ted Lindseys and another two Harts.
In 2022–23, McDavid became the sixth player in NHL history, and first in 27 years, to score 150 plus points, and scored 64 goals (the most since Alex Ovechkin’s 65 in 2007–08) en route to winning his first Rocket Richard trophy.
With respect to the playoffs, McDavid has scored 37 goals and 117 points in 74 games, including breaking Wayne Gretzky’s record for most assists in a post season last year with 34, leading to him winning the Conn Smythe Trophy despite the Oilers losing in seven games to the Florida Panthers in the Stanley Cup Final. He also was the first player in NHL history to score four points in back-to-back Stanley Cup Final games, as he helped the Oilers come back from a 3–0 series deficit.
There’s a lot more that could be mentioned regarding McDavid’s NHL career, but we only have so much bandwidth.
McDavid’s international play
McDavid won a gold medal at the 2013 World U18 Championship, the 2015 World Junior Championship, and the 2016 World Championships. He also captained the 2018 World Championship team that ended up losing in the bronze medal match.
The only best-on-best tournament McDavid has played in was the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, where he was the captain for the under 23 Team North America, who did not advance past the round robin.
However, fans will finally get to see McDavid don the Team Canada uniform in a best-on-best, first with the Four Nations Face-off this February, followed by the 2026 Olympics next year.
McDavid’s career statistics
We went over some of McDavid’s statistical achievements above, so we will just let the numbers below speak for themselves:
| Scor | Scor | Scor | Ice | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Season | Age | Tm | GP | G | A | PTS | ATOI | Awards |
| 2015-16 | 19 | EDM | 45 | 16 | 32 | 48 | 18:53 | AR-1,AS-13,Calder-3 |
| 2016-17 | 20 | EDM | 82 | 30 | 70 | 100 | 21:08 | AS-1,Byng-14,Hart-1,Pearson-1,Ross-1,Selke-16 |
| 2017-18 | 21 | EDM | 82 | 41 | 67 | 108 | 21:33 | AS-1,Byng-10,Hart-5,Pearson-1,Ross-1,Selke-26 |
| 2018-19 | 22 | EDM | 78 | 41 | 75 | 116 | 22:50 | AS-1,Byng-5,Hart-3 |
| 2019-20 | 23 | EDM | 64 | 34 | 63 | 97 | 21:52 | AS-3,Hart-5 |
| 2020-21 | 24 | EDM | 56 | 33 | 72 | 105 | 22:09 | AS-1,Byng-20,Hart-1,Pearson-1,Ross-1,Selke-27 |
| 2021-22 | 25 | EDM | 80 | 44 | 79 | 123 | 22:04 | AS-2,Byng-34,Hart-2,Ross-1 |
| 2022-23 | 26 | EDM | 82 | 64 | 89 | 153 | 22:23 | AS-1,Byng-16,Hart-1,Pearson-1,Richard-1,Ross-1 |
| 2023-24 | 27 | EDM | 76 | 32 | 100 | 132 | 21:22 | AS-2,Byng-29,Hart-3,Selke-30,Smythe-1 |
| Career | 9 yrs | 645 | 335 | 647 | 982 | 21:42 |
McDavid is almost assuredly going to score his 1000th career point this year, and in fact could ver likely challenge for 1100.
Not much else to say other than “wow.”
McDavid’s player profile
McDavid is not just a superstar and not just a franchise player. He is a generational talent that is on his way to becoming a consensus top five player of all time, and has a real shot at becoming just the second player in NHL history to hit 2,000 points (at his current point per game pace, it would take him about 1,315 games, which he would hit if plays nine more full seasons). He is a combination of speed, hands, hockey IQ and just sheer determination.
Strengths
Everything?
The first thing that comes to mind with McDavid is speed. There isn’t a player who terrifies defenders more coming down the ice with a head of steam:
Then there are his hands, whether it is on a breakaway deke:
Or just one against the entire opposing team:
Clutchness is also another one of McDavid’s strengths, where he has 69 game winning goals in his career and has scored big goals in series winning games multiple times:
Playmaking and hockey IQ is another strength of McJesus’. After all, there is a reason he became one of only five players to notch 100 assists in a season last year:
Weaknesses
Nothing?
I mean, seriously, does a player of this caliber actually have any weaknesses? I guess you can say there are some areas that he is not as good at as others?
Three seasons ago you would have said goal scoring. Then he put up 64 and won the Rocket. Four seasons ago maybe face offs. Now he has gone three straight seasons above 51%. Physicality maybe? Well last year he knocked his opponent 118 times, good for fifth on the Oilers.
If you asked some other teams’ fans, they’d say winning. Which is kind of hilarious when you look at the fact that since 2019–20, the Oilers are seventh in regular season wins and points and sixth in playoff wins. Heck, since him joining the league in 2015–16, the Oilers are 11th in playoff wins, despite missing the playoffs in three of his first four seasons. The last three seasons have been even better, as the Oilers have the second most wins in the playoffs, behind only the Florida Panthers who made it to the Final in back-to-back years.
So yeah, weakness? McDavid’s never heard of her.
Where does McDavid fit into the Oilers lineup
First line centre, only because there literally cannot be a higher position on a team. He is on both power play units, can play shorthanded when needed, is the franchise player, the second best player to ever wear the Oil drop and (hopefully) an Oiler for life.
In terms of his linemates, Zach Hyman will continue to be stapled on his wing, considering Hyman has scored 117 goals in three seasons with him, including the third most in the NHL last season with 54.
The other wing is where there are some questions, but that is due to a sheer amount of options this season. Will it be one of the newly acquired Jeff Skinner or Viktor Arvidsson? Will it be Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who posted a career best 37 goals and 104 points playing a fair amount of time with him two seasons ago? It seems unlikely with the new depth that we will see McDavid and Draisaitl playing at even strength other than in “break in case of emergency” scenarios and overtime.
Best guess at this point is that it will be one of Skinner and Nugent-Hopkins, as Arvidsson seems to be pencilled in with Draisaitl. We will just have to see how training camp goes.
Photo by Melissa Tamez/Icon Sportswire
