McDavid Could Join Rare Group

Connor McDavid’s ascent up the NHL point standings has been rapid. In the middle of his sixth season he’s already totalled the 452nd most points in NHL history. At this current pace, he will finish this season with 567 career points and be 393rd all-time in points. He’ll move ahead of  Wendel Clark, Tony Tanti, Jimmy Carson, Sandis Ozolinsh and active players like Nikita Kucherov. He just passed Nathan MacKinnon two days ago.

He has 58 points in 33 games this season and his 1.75 pts/game is the best of his young career. He’s improved his career pts/game to 1.37 which ranks fifth all time among players with 200 games played, trailing only Wayne Gretzky (1.92), Mario Lemieux (1.88), Mike Bossy (1.50) and Bobby Orr (1.39). If he scores 40 points in his final 23 games (same 1.75 P/GP pace) he will finish the season with 98 points and be tied with Orr for a career 1.39 P/GP.

The exciting thing about McDavid is that he is still improving. He is just entering his prime, and because of the advancements in education, the elite player’s prime years are extending to longer periods of time. Over the past two seasons McDavid has scored 155 points in 97 games, which equals 1.60 P/GP.

I think it is very realistic to expect him to be at or above that pace for the next five seasons, possibly longer. His game is constantly evolving and improving.

He’s improved his shot the past few seasons. Near the end of the 2018/2019 season McDavid told me his goal was to work on his shot in the off-season. He felt he needed to improve shooting in motion. Elite players are always pushing and looking for ways to improve. McDavid got injured though, in the final game of the season, and he spent the summer of 2019 rehabbing his knee so he didn’t get to work on some of the things he wanted.

But he did work on his shot, among other things, this past off-season, and the league’s best player has added another weapon to his arsenal.

The interesting thing is that prior to this season, McDavid was among the most productive goal scorers.

In his first five season he had the eighth most goals in the NHL, and led the league in points. So it wasn’t like goal scoring was a problem for him, but he wanted to become a more dangerous shooter. This season we have seen him take one-timers on the powerplay. I don’t recall seeing that in previous seasons.

He’s also improved his shooting in motion, mainly on two-on-ones. He felt he wasn’t finishing those enough in the past, that maybe he was passing too often, and this year we have seen him shoot more on odd-man rushes, especially when he comes down the right side. We’ve seen him look right at his teammate, but still beat the goalie. Scary good.

This season he is shooting more and is scoring. He is on pace for a 50-goal in a normal 82-game season.

He’s slowly adding a shooter mentality to his game, without losing any of his playmaking skills. We probably shouldn’t be surprised. The greats are always looking to improve and challenge themselves, and with his new found scoring prowess McDavid has a chance to join select group of players.

Since the NHL expanded from six teams only six players have won the Art Ross trophy and led the league in goals at the same time.

Phil Esposito did it four years in a row with the Boston Bruins. He only won the Hart once in those four years, 1974. Bobby Orr won it in 1971 and 1972 while Bobby Clarke won in 1973.

Guy Lafleur led both in 1978 with the Montreal Canadiens and also won the Hart.

Wayne Gretzky accomplished it five times with the Edmonton Oilers and won the Hart all five seasons. In 1986, when he set the NHL single season points record with 215 points, his linemate Jari Kurri led the league in goals with 68.

Mario Lemieux led in goals and points three times. He won the Hart in 1988 and 1996.

It is interesting to note that Lemieux didn’t win the Hart in 1989 — Gretzky did with LA — while in 1986, when Gretzky scored 215, his fellow players voted Lemieux as Most Outstanding player (Ted Lindsay).

Jarome Iginla achieved both once in 2002, but Jose Theodore won the Hart. They each finished with 434 votes, but Theodore had three more first place votes so he won.

Alex Ovechkin was the most recent to do it and he also won the Hart in 2008.

Others who won the scoring title and led the league in goals include Gordie Howe (1951-1953) and Bobby Hull (1960, 1962, 1966) three times, Joe Malone (1918, 1920), Babe Dye (1923, 1925), Bill Cook (1927, 1933) and Charlie Conacher (1934, 1935) twice and Cy Denneny (1924), Nels Stewart (1926), Howie Morenz (1928), Ace Bailey (1929), Cooney Weiland (1930) Gordie Drillion (1938), Doug Bentley (1943) and Bernie Geoffrion (1961).

Currently McDavid is leading the NHL with 58 points, nine ahead of Leon Draisaitl and 16 points in front of Patrick Kane. McDavid is second in goals with 20, trailing Auston Matthews by one. Matthews does have three games in hand as the Maple Leafs have 26 games remaining while the Oilers have 23. Right now McDavid is the clear favourite to win the Art Ross and the Hart trophy, while he and Matthews will battle for the Rocket Richard trophy for most goals.

Will he become the first player in 13 seasons to lead the league in points and goals?