3 Oilers players who can hit major milestones next season
Plenty will be on the line for the Edmonton Oilers when the 2024-25 NHL season rolls around in a few months.
The team is coming off an amazing playoff run that put them within one win away from winning the Stanley Cup, and they will be hungry to finish the job going into the new season. The team got better with a few key additions up front and the hype surrounding the team is as high as ever.
There will also be a lot to play for from an individual player perspective as well, with three Oilers having potentially franchise-altering milestones within their reach in the new season.
Edmonton’s top priority will be to win games next season, but you would be kidding yourself if you weren’t at least keeping tabs on these three players:
Connor McDavid
The Oilers captain will almost certainly become the fourth player in Oilers history to hit the 1,000-mark plateau with the team.
When the season opens up, Connor McDavid will be sitting at 982 points, just 18 points shy of 1000. By doing so, he will join Mark Messier, Jari Kurri, and Wayne Gretzky as the only other players to hit that mark in an Oilers uniform.
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There is a good chance he will also step into second place in franchise points, as he is only 61 points back of Kurri for the spot. After that, McDavid will have Gretzky in his sights, who sits atop the Oilers leaderboards with 1669 points.
The 2014 first-overall pick will get a chance to do all this in the same season he hits 700 NHL games played. McDavid currently has 645 NHL games under his belt and is set to hit 700 on February 7, 2025, against the Colorado Avalanche.
Leon Draisaitl
Not to be outdone by the Oilers captain, Leon Draisaitl also has a few impressive milestones in sight for the next season.
The German power forward may be one of the best goalscorers on the planet right now, and he could further cement that status by scoring his 400th NHL goal this upcoming season. Right now, he is sitting at 347 goals, which is 53 back of the milestone.
Draisaitl has scored 52 and 55 goals within the past three seasons, so this is not far off by any means. If he accomplishes it, he will surpass Messier (392) for fourth place in Oilers history for goals.
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Another impressive milestone within reach is the 900-point mark, from which Draisaitl is just 50 points away. Given he has scored 100+ points in five seasons, this one should happen sooner rather than later.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins
The longest-tenured Oilers player will be continuing his pursuit of the Oilers’ all-time games-played record, and although he won’t quite get there this season, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is closing in.
When the season rolls around, Nugent-Hopkins will be at 881. He can surpass 900 this upcoming season and get that number up to 963 if he appears in all 82 regular-season games.
This will make him the third Oilers player to play in at least 900 games with the team. It would also put him just nine games behind Ryan Smyth (971) for second in franchise history and 75 behind Kevin Lowe (1037) for the franchise record. This would set up the 2025-26 season as the one in which Nugent-Hopkins can grab the record.
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On top of that, RNH is also sitting at 699 points heading into next season, which means he will almost assuredly hit the 700-point mark early in the year.
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