The NHL returns from its holiday break on Saturday, and the Edmonton Oilers are coming out of that break as one of the league’s hottest teams, going on an 8-2-1 run over their previous 11 games. It has helped them erase what was a brutally disappointing start to the regular season through the first month-and-a-half.
The driving force behind this recent surge is superstar forward Connor McDavid.
McDavid is always the engine that drives the Oilers, while he and fellow superstar Leon Draisaitl have been doing their best to put the team on their backs and carry it for most of the season.
For the time being, they are.
McDavid specifically.
Connor McDavid on the best offensive run of his career
Over the Oilers’ previous 11 games going into Saturday, McDavid had recorded 31 points, scoring 12 goals with 19 assists. Nobody in the NHL has been even close to that level of production over the past month.
Just to put that level of production into perspective, the Oilers, as a team, scored just 49 goals during that run. That means McDavid had a direct hand (either scoring or assisting) in 63% of the Oilers goals.
With McDavid on the ice over that stretch, the Oilers have outscored teams by a 34-12 margin in 238 minutes of hockey.
When he has not been on the ice, they have been outscored by a 15-20 margin in 422 minutes.
For the season as a whole, the Oilers have outscored teams 81-47 with McDavid on the ice, while being outscored 51-83 when he is not.
All of that is absurd production and a ridiculous contribution to a team’s offense.
But it’s not just the fact that McDavid is carrying the offense right now that stands out. It is that this is the single-best 11-game stretch in McDavid’s career.
According to the Hockey-Reference StatHead database, he has never had more points over any 11-game stretch in his career. He has also never scored more goals over any 11-game stretch. Given how productive he has been and how many video game-like numbers he has recorded over the years, that is a significant accomplishment.
It is also pretty unheard of for any player in the modern NHL.
Since the start of the 1995-96 season (a stretch of 30 years), the only other player in the NHL who had any 11-game stretches with more than 30 points is Pittsburgh Penguins Hall of Fame player Mario Lemieux.
That is exclusive company.
This run has helped McDavid climb to the top of the NHL scoring leaderboard, opening up a six-point lead over Colorado Avalanche forward Nathan MacKinnon. McDavid and MacKinnon are the only players in the NHL who entered play on Saturday with more than 55 points.
All of that production is great, but it still might not mean anything to him if it does not eventually result in team success. Winning the Stanley Cup is the only thing McDavid’s career is lacking. He has been to the Stanley Cup Final two years in a row, but has been unable to break through and win it. The team around him still has some issues, flaws and concerns and still may not have enough to win it all. McDavid seems to be determined to do as much of it by himself as he can.
