Connor McDavid is off to a Gretzky-like start to the 2026-27 season – and appears in great position to compile one of the greatest individual seasons in NHL history.
It’s been pretty obvious since he was drafted first overall by the Edmonton Oilers in 2015 that Connor McDavid was simply different.
Nobody has been proven wrong in that regard over the last 11 years, with McDavid stacking up six Art Tross trophies, three Hart trophies and even a Conn Smythe Trophy in a losing effort in the 2024 Stanley Cup Final.
The individual seasons have been ridiculous, and in many cases, have been the most impressive play NHL fans have seen since the days of Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux. McDavid unbelievably posted 105 points during the COVID-shortened 56-game season of 2020-21, and put together the best season of any player since Lemieux’s 1995-96 campaign with 153 points in 2022-23.
This season, however, McDavid is making even those feats look like mere child’s play.
Through just 18 games of action, McDavid has stacked up 10 goals and an unbelievable 37 assists, giving the sport’s brightest star a whopping 47 points – and it’s not even a week after Election Day. His 2.61 points per game is not only the best mark of his career – it would stand in as the sixth-best mark in NHL history, not extremely far behind the record 2.77 points per game Gretzky posted during his 205-point campaign in 1983-84 – which came in just 74 games.
It’s still hard to see McDavid keeping this together for several months to possibly break Gretzky’s single-season scoring record, standing at an incredibly lofty 215 points, reached during the 1985-86 season.
Even still, McDavid has plenty of wiggle room – with his current scoring clip far above the 1.866 points per game he posted during his 153-point season in 2022-23. This time around, McDavid will have an extra two games to stack up points as well, as the NHL is in the midst of its first-ever 84-game regular season.
McDavid could, at the very least, break into the Gretzky/Lemieux echelon that has been prohibitive for every other player to exist at the time or since then. Steve Yzerman’s 155-point mark in 1988-89 remains the highest scoring season from anybody not named Gretzky or Lemieux, with McDavid appearing poised to dethrone Stevie Y in that regard with a healthy season.
When it comes to the highest-scoring individual NHL seasons of all-time, it starts to look like a Greatest Hits album from Wayne Gretzky, who occupies the four top spots and eight of the top 10 highest-scoring seasons of all-time – and McDavid has a way to go to reach those lofty heights.
With a potentially historic individual season underway from the game’s best player, here’s a look at the most impressive single seasons in NHL history:
- Wayne Gretzky (Edmonton Oilers) 1985-86: 52 G, 163 A, 215 points
- Wayne Gretzky (Edmonton Oilers) 1981-82: 92 G, 120 A, 212 points
- Wayne Gretzky (Edmonton Oilers) 1984-85: 73 G, 135 A, 208 points
- Wayne Gretzky (Edmonton Oilers) 1983-84: 87 G, 118 A, 205 points
- Mario Lemieux (Pittsburgh Penguins) 1988-89: 85 G, 114 A, 199 points
- Wayne Gretzky (Edmonton Oilers) 1982-83: 71 G, 125 A, 196 points
- Wayne Gretzky (Edmonton Oilers) 1986-87: 62 G, 121 A, 183 points
- Mario Lemieux (Pittsburgh Penguins) 1987-88: 70 G, 98 A, 168 points
- Wayne Gretzky (Los Angeles Kings) 1988-89: 54 G, 114 A, 168 points
- Wayne Gretzky (Edmonton Oilers) 1980-81: 55 G, 109 A, 164 points
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