Oilers' McDavid jumps 78 players in NHL scoring race in just three weeks
Is Connor McDavid back? Was he ever gone in the first place?
Well, if you took a look at his first month of the NHL season, it might have been easy to think the reigning Hart Trophy winner had lost a step or two this year. Twelve games into the season, McDavid had only mustered 12 points, which was good for 94th in NHL scoring and far off the 153-point pace he accomplished last season.
Of course, there were some injury troubles that McDavid had been going through early on that could have contributed to the slow start. Regardless, there was still plenty of concern among the fanbase about McDavid’s steep decline in production.
Well, that narrative seems to have gone to bed as the 2015 first-overall pick looks like he is back to his old self. In the three weeks since Kris Knoblauch was hired as the new Oilers head coach, McDavid has jumped an astounding 78 players in NHL scoring and is now 16th in the league.
Connor McDavid is never out of the race:)
His rank in points over the past few weeks…
Monday, November 13th – 94th
Monday, November 20th – 70th
Monday, November 27th – 16th— Mike Kelly (@MikeKellyNHL) November 27, 2023
This has been helped by a few monster performances in his last two games. He picked up four points in a 5-0 win over the Washington Capitals on Friday and added five more in an 8-2 clobbering of the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday.
Overall, McDavid has been on an absolute tear that has seen him score 13 points in six games. That has raised his total from 12 points all the way up to 25 on the season, which is second on the team to Leon Draisaitl’s 28.
Teammate Zach Hyman was asked about McDavid’s sudden resurgence following Sunday night’s win.
“You can’t contain him for too long,” Hyman told reporters. “[McDavid] is the best player in the world.”
Now, there is still a lot of work ahead of the Oilers captain if he wants to defend his scoring crown. At the moment, Tampa Bay Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov leads the league with 35 points, meaning that McDavid is still 10 points behind the league leader.
However, if he can continue scoring the way he has been over the last three weeks, it might not be too long before McDavid takes his place back on top of the scoring race.
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