Edmonton Oilers' Connor McDavid leads the NHL in total points in 2023

Article content What a year it’s been for Connor McDavid. The face of the Edmonton Oilers franchise did not disappoint in 2023. When he stepped out onto the ice against the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday night, he did so as the NHL’s leading point scorer across this past year. Prior to puck drop, our friends on the NHL Public Relations feed of twitter.com had one last post for No.

97 before the proverbial ball drops, pointing out how “nobody has recorded more points (regular season and playoffs) in 2023 than Connor McDavid.” Combining the total number of points from the back end of last season, including playoffs, plus the first half (or so) of the 2023 24 schedule, McDavid has scored 52 goals and 94 assists for a whopping 146 points in 86 games played.

That’s an average of 1.7 points per game, which eclipses current front runner on this season, Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov, who checked in with 1.66 points per game (from 24 goals and 34 assists for a league leading 58 points) ahead of Saturday’s puck drop against the visiting New York Rangers.

Breaking down his numbers, of McDavid’s league leading 153 regular season points from last season, 76 of them came in the 2023, along with 20 more in the playoffs, and 45 more so far this season (before playing the final two games). With 121 regular season points this year, McDavid has a chance to become the first player since Wayne Gretzky to finish with the most regular season points in three straight calendar years, as he sat ahead of Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon (118 points), Kucherov (110 points) and teammate Leon Draisaitl heading into Saturday’s games.

However it ends up, 2023 saw McDavid just the fifth player in league history to lead in all three categories of goals (63), assists (89) and, by default, points during a single season. At the same time, he tied an NHL record of four individual awards in a season. And now, as the clock is set to turn on 2024, McDavid played in his 600th career NHL game, after having scored 315 goals and 580 assists for 895 points, along with a plus minus rating of 118 throughout his first 599 regular season contests.

That’s an overall clip of 1.49 points per game, which only goes to show the 26 year old’s game is improving. Currently, McDavid sits seventh overall among NHL point scorers on the current season with 12 goals and 33 assists for 45 points in his first 30 games played. He missed two games in October with an apparent lower back injury, and may have felt rushed back to play in the 2023 Heritage Classic outdoor game.

Upon returning to action, Connor McDavid had a very un Connor McDavid like run of six games with all of two points. It was part of a longer run where he earned just five points across his first nine games back from injury, before setting off on a 12 game point streak where he scored nine goals and 22 assists to look much more like his former self and climb back into the top 10 in league scoring.

Interestingly enough, McDavid’s lull coincided directly with an Oilers slump that saw them go 3 9 1 to start the season, before that 12 game streak began the moment Kris Knoblauch took over head coaching duties from Jay Woodcroft, with his first game behind the Oilers bench coming Nov. 13 against the New York Islanders.

Of course, those are all just numbers to the Oilers captain. The only one he really cares about is the No. 1 — as in first place. Finishing on top of the pile. Ahead of everyone else. And hoisting the Stanley Cup to forever cement his legacy both in the storied franchise he plays for and the league, itself.

But it’s not just McDavid who’s been cashing in on offence lately. Across the league, players are scoring at a rate of at least 6.3 goals per game in consecutive calendar years for the first time in three decades. Last year, that number climbed to 6.4, including playoffs. And it’s led to some edge of your seat results, with 527 comeback wins — including 206 third period rallies — so far in 2023.

And if part of McDavid’s unwritten job is to be a poster boy for the league, then business is booming as he’s helped it enjoy record revenue and attendance this year. The NHL is projecting profits for the 2023 24 season at more than $6 billion US. It certainly doesn’t hurt having last season set a new benchmark in total attendance with an increase of 7.9 per cent over the season prior.

The league reports teams are playing to 95.5 per cent capacity so far this season, which is the second highest rate on record behind the 96.8 per cent at this point in 2012 13. E mail: gmoddejonge@postmedia.com On Twitter: @GerryModdejonge.