Connor McDavid’s done it, scoring his 1,000th point Thursday night against the Nashville Predators, becoming the fourth-fastest player in NHL history to do so.
The only players who have reached the feat faster were Wayne Gretzky, who did so in 424 games, Mario Lemieux in 513 games, and Mike Bossy in 656 games. McDavid reached the feat in his 659th game, falling narrowly behind Bossy.
McDavid hit the mark 3,320 days after he scored his first point, a goal, on October 13th, 2015, doing so by deflecting an Andrej Sekera point shot past Dallas Stars netminder Kari Lehtonen.
His 1,000th point, meanwhile, was another goal. This time it was set up by his right-hand man, Leon Draisaitl, feeding him on a cross-ice pass on a two-on-one that McDavid made no mistake on. It was McDavid’s 341st goal, going along with the 659 assists he’s racked up over his career.
His path to 1,000 points has been a winding one. Rarely having to deal with injuries that forced him to miss action, his game has continued to evolve every single season. He first 100-point season came in his sophomore 2016-17 season, in a year where he racked up 30 goals and 70 points to get there. From that point on he’s only become more and more dynamic, whether it was scoring a career-high 64 goals in 2022-23 while hitting over 150 points — the 153 mark, to be exact — or becoming the fourth player to hit 100 assists in a season a year later, he’s proven he can do it all.
And for as great of a player as he’s been in the regular season, McDavid’s taken his playoff game to new heights, too, when he set an NHL record for most assists in a single playoff last year with 34, while also becoming the third player in history to have 40 or more points in a single playoff run.
McDavid’s had a fair share of players help him reach the millennium mark, but none more prominent than Draisaitl, making his 1,000th point even more special that he set him up.
There’s Draisaitl and then there’s everyone else when it comes to feeding the Oilers captain, with the next closest player, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, still being a staggering 84 assists away. Darnell Nurse, who got the secondary assist on McDavid’s goal Thursday, finds himself tied with Tyson Barrie for the third.
Other current Oilers in Zach Hyman, Evan Bouchard, and Mattias Ekholm help round out the top 15. In total, 56 players have helped set up McDavid throughout his career.
While Sekera had an assist on McDavid’s first goal, he also helped out on his second, scoring five days later against the Calgary Flames on goaltender Jonas Hiller. Taylor Hall got the other assist on that goal.
For as much as McDavid has had a scoring touch throughout his career, he’s been far more prominent of a setup man, helping 55 different players score goals throughout his career thus far. And once again, there should be no surprise who sits atop in Leon Draisaitl.
McDavid’s set up the second half of the Dynamic Duo 190 times in the 641 games they’ve played together, a number which once again, laps the field. But the next closest pair of players who McDavid assisted is much closer than those who assisted McDavid.
Nugent-Hopkins, once again, comes in second, with McDavid setting up the longest-serving member of the team for 72 goals and given the how many goals Zach Hyman has scored since joining the Oilers, it’s no surprise that he comes in third, with McDavid feeding him for 67 goals — a staggering 55.8 percent of the goals he’s scored in Edmonton.
Other nearby names in Pat Maroon, Jesse Puljujarvi, Evan Bouchard and Zack Kassian all have seen, or continue to see, significant ice time with 97.
McDavid became not only the 99th player in NHL history to record 1,000 points, but the 10th member of the Oilers to do so, following Gretzky, Mark Messier, Paul Coffey, Adam Oates, Jari Kurri, Bernie Nicholls, Vincent Damphousse, Glenn Anderson, Ray Whitney and Doug Weight.
Zach Laing is the Nation Network’s news director and senior columnist, making up one-half of the DFO DFS Report. He can be followed on Twitter at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@thenationnetwork.com.
