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Connor McDavid is quietly having a historic season

Analysis by
Staff writer|
April 3, 2021 at 9:16 p.m. EDT
Connor McDavid is in the midst of one of the best seasons in NHL history. (Jason Franson/AP)

Connor McDavid is a special talent. He was compared to Sidney Crosby before his name was called first at the 2015 NHL draft. A few even anointed him “The Next One” — the most likely successor to “The Great One,” Wayne Gretzky, the NHL’s best player ever — before McDavid played his first game with the Edmonton Oilers. All McDavid has done since is live up to those remarkable expectations. Yet the 2016-17 Hart Trophy winner as MVP and two-time Art Ross Trophy winner for notching the most points is quietly having his best season yet.

Entering Friday, he has 21 goals (including 14 at even strength) and a league-leading 42 assists, giving him an NHL-best 63 points in 37 games. His career-high scoring rate of 1.7 points per game would put him close to the top 50 all-time. If this were an 82-game season, McDavid would be on pace to record 47 goals and 93 assists for 140 points, and his 148 adjusted points rank 12th all-time.

The advanced metric of adjusted points seeks to level the playing field across multiple eras to account for different schedule lengths, roster sizes and scoring environments. Since the NHL expanded beyond its Original Six teams in 1967, only Gretzky and Mario Lemieux have produced a season with at least 150 adjusted points. McDavid is just off the pace.

McDavid’s performance at even strength is up across the board. He is scoring nearly 1.3 goals per 60 minutes, his highest rate since 2017-18. Even more impressive is his primary assist rate, which sits at a whopping 1.8 per 60 minutes. His secondary assist rate, meanwhile, is down from previous seasons. In other words, he is setting up his teammates now more than ever and not relying on secondary assists, which less directly influence scoring, to pad his point total. He’s also securing a point on eight of every 10 even-strength goals his team scores when he’s on the ice.

Doubters may attribute McDavid’s surge to ice time shared with the reigning MVP, Leon Draisaitl, but that would be a mistake. The two have skated together less than half as much (208 minutes) as they have separately (444 minutes), and while McDavid’s line without Draisaitl doesn’t boast the goal differential (plus-1) that Draisaitl’s line does without McDavid (plus-5), the former holds a 242-185 edge in even-strength scoring chances, including a 108-76 advantage in high-danger chances. Draisaitl’s line without McDavid is in the red for both categories.

His season isn’t being driven by luck, either. McDavid’s rate of scoring chances — including shot attempts from high-danger areas such as the slot or crease — has improved this season.

McDavid is as dependable as ever on the power play, too, even though his point rate has dipped slightly. For example, he is scoring “only” 8.3 points per 60 minutes of ice time on the power play, the 12th-best mark among the 183 forwards getting at least 50 minutes of power-play time, and that’s lower than his 2019-20 mark (10.4). Yet his goal-scoring output has remained steady. McDavid’s rate of high-danger chances with the man advantage has more than doubled from last season to five per 60 minutes. He should have a goal or two more on the power play than he does. If anything, he has been unlucky with the man advantage.

It’s too early to say for sure that McDavid is the second coming of Gretzky, but he certainly is a young player ascending to the highest levels of the game — and he’s doing things that his peers simply can’t duplicate.