We were witnesses to history last week when we saw Connor McDavid record his 1000th point in the NHL against the Nashville Predators. And it was perfectly storybook, the scriptwriters couldn’t have planned it any better. A two-on-one with Leon Draisaitl that McDavid capitalized on. The bench cleared to celebrate with McDavid in the corner and it resulted in one of the best shirts we’ve ever seen courtesty of Draisaitl making an appearance in the locker room post game.
Along with the discussion surrounding his 1000th point comes a look farther in the future to start speculating just how far up the all-time scoring leaderboard that McDavid can propel himself by the time he retires.
As he hit the 1000-point mark the fourth fastest and fourth youngest in NHL history, the ceiling is the sky on what McDavid can accomplish. He has the potential to become just the second player in NHL history to reach 2000 points and retire as the second-highest scorer of all time.
In this week’s Sunday Census, we wanted to ask Oil Country what the consensus would be when projecting McDavid’s career point output. We took to X to ask how many points he would end his career with.
Want to take part in Sunday Census polls? We send them out every week on our Twitter at @oilrigEDM. Follow along or send in ideas for the next poll!
Just behind The Great One
The runaway winner of this week’s poll is the belief that McDavid will record 2000 points over his NHL career. 64% of voters believe that he will reach 2000 points in his career, likely coming the second all time to hit that mark behind Wayne Gretzky.
At his current career pace of 1.52 points per game, McDavid would have to play 1316 career games. He is currently in his 10th NHL season and 27-years-old. Assuming he maintains his health and continues playing the majority of games, it is not unrealistic for a player of his talent, skillset, and calibre to be playing into his late 30s. Sidney Crosby being a great comparable in this discussion, with him being 37 right now and still putting up 90+ points per season. Most of the players on the all time scoring leaderboard played well in excess of that 1316 estimate as well.
It is fully expected that McDavid’s point production will begin to trail off in the upcoming seasons. He is in his prime right now, averaging 136 points per season in the last three years. If he can maintain this level of production for a few more seasons, he would set himself up well to be able to hit 2000. And if he does it in exactly the same pace he hit his first thousand, he may even have a season or two at the end to build a cushion over 2000.
1800-1899 is within the realm of possibility
As of now, only four players have recorded 1800 points. One active player, Crosby, is within reach if he plays a couple more full seasons. But McDavid could potentially be the fifth or sixth of all time to reach 1800 career points, putting him in elite company. Almost 16% of voters agree and selected this option in the poll.
Given regression and aging curves as his career winds down, this seems like an ideal target and a place he could likely land on the all time scoring leaderboard. But we’ve seen McDavid is in incredible physical shape and his body can recover rapidly. With his agility and ability to think the game, he should be able to push those curves to their maximum and (hopefully) proceed past this range.
Will McDavid be the third to hit 1900?
Only two players in NHL history of now have broken the 1900-point barrier. Wayne Gretzky and Jaromir Jagr. If McDavid were to hit this total and potentially be a top-three scoring player of all time, we would be incredibly lucky to witness such a feat.
Of course, if he gets this far, we are going to be wanting and pulling for him to get just a little bit more and reach 2000. But to put himself in the company of these two legends is worth it. Tied with the previous option, 16% of this week’s voting pool think this is where McDavid will finish his career.
Close to but not quite in the top
Finishing last in this week’s poll (because we are optimistic Oilers fans well aware of the greatness of Connor McDavid) is a career point total of 1700-1799. Just 4.3% of voters selected this option. This would still be an impressive feat. He would end up well within the top ten all time, possibly even top five if he happens to end on 1799 and beat Ron Francis by one point.
Given his current trajectory, if McDavid were to end with a point total in this range, he would likely have faced a significant loss of playing time similar to Crosby, retired early, or his point scoring pace will have dropped off drastically over the next few seasons. McDavid got his 700th career point early in his eighth season, placing him in his mid-30s at a similar scoring pace to his early career.
It would still be an incredibly impressive feat to be one of the top-five to 10 scoring players of all time.
Photo by Melissa Tamez/Icon Sportswire
