The 2026-27 NHL season has barely started. Only five teams have played 10 games on their schedule. One team in the NHL — the Los Angeles Kings — has only played six. Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers have played eight games so far this campaign.
Looking at the stat sheet, though, you couldn't expect only eight games played. McDavid leads Edmonton, and the entire league, with 23 points in these eight games. One other player is close to him, as Vegas Golden Knights star Jack Eichel has 18 points. But Eichel has played two more games than McDavid this season.
A point-per-game player in the NHL isn't entirely uncommon. There are usually multiple players a season who are able to score at least one point per game. There are a handful of players who decimate that mark. For example, last season McDavid had 138 points in 82 games, averaging 1.68 points per game.
This season, the Oilers captain seems to have somehow reached a new level. He is currently on pace for 242 points this season, which would shatter the NHL's single-season record. It's unlikely this will come to pass. At the same time, McDavid has achieved historic feats on the game's highest stage that at least give some reasonable respect in his quest for another MVP-caliber season.
Connor McDavid has set modern benchmarks before
In 2024, the Edmonton Oilers made the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since 2006. Connor McDavid, long established as this generation's biggest superstar, was on an absolute heater. Though this playoff run did not end in a Stanley Cup, it did end with an astonishing record falling into his hands.
McDavid broke the record for most assists in a playoff campaign in 2024, previously held by Wayne Gretzky. He also became the first player since Gretzky in 1992-93 to score 40+ points in one playoff run. Simply put, this is the greatest playoff performance of this generation.
Breaking Gretzky's record is quite poetic for the topic of this discussion. In the history of the NHL, only one player has scored 200 or more points in a single season. Gretzky did it four times in his career.
You can take your pick for his magnum opus. It's either his age-24 season when he scored 50 goals and 215 points, or his age-20 season when he scored a league record 92 goals and 212 points. Gretzky was in a league of his own during his prime, to say the least.
History is certainly interesting to examine, especially in sports. No two seasons are alike. Take, for instance, Gretzky's 92-goal campaign. He didn't have the hottest start. Through his first eight games, Gretzky had five goals and 13 points. Good, but nothing that indicated he would shatter records at the end of the season.
The 215-point campaign, though, began similarly to McDavid's season this year. Gretzky began that year with five goals and 20 points through eight games. He had one fewer goal and two fewer assists than the Oilers' captain does at this moment in time.
Article Continues BelowOf course, we are getting well ahead of ourselves when it comes to McDavid scoring 200+ points in a season. The likelihood of that happening is almost zero. The modern game does not operate in a way conducive to that sort of performance.
For some of Gretzky's other big milestones, though, it's hard not to imagine those possibilities. Even with a small sample size like this. Gretzky hit the 180+ mark a couple of times in his career. Is this on the table, perhaps?
A lot needs to go his way. The Oilers captain needs to remain healthy, for one. He also needs to keep up this sort of dominant play consistently. And there's the added grind of this being an 84-game schedule, up from 82 games in every season McDavid has played previously. This gives him more chances to pad his stats. But it's also a bit more wear and tear on the body.
McDavid has the NHL's last 150+ point season, scoring 153 points in 2022-23. He has been the modern benchmark of greatness in the NHL for a while now. With his track record, combined with his current level of play, it's hard not to overreact and think of the possibilities for him in 2026-27.