Overview
- Connor McDavid recorded a five-point game against the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday, giving him eight goals and 23 assists for 31 points in 10 games and leaving him about 12 points clear of the next NHL scorer.
- That total makes McDavid the fourth player in NHL history to reach 30 points in his first 10 games and the second player to post three five-point games within a team’s first 10 games, joining Mario Lemieux.
- The league and team data put McDavid on an extrapolated pace of roughly 260 points over an 84-game season, a projection that would far exceed Wayne Gretzky’s 215-point single-season mark.
- McDavid has been on the ice for roughly 37 of Edmonton’s 46 goals and directly factored into about 31 of them, a level of influence that highlights concerns about the Oilers’ depth despite their 8-1-1 start.
- Analysts and betting markets warn the hot start may not hold because of the small sample size, high shooting percentage and lighter early schedule, and a normalization of his scoring would test Edmonton’s playoff durability.