As Scoring Rises In The NHL In 2022-23, Connor McDavid Raises The Bar Again

Depending on how the next few days shake out, the NHL may ring in 2023 with its highest scoring rate in nearly 30 years. Through Dec. 28, teams are averaging 6.32 goals per game so far in the 2022-23 NHL season, per Hockey Reference.

That continues an upward trend that has been ongoing since the 2015-16. It’s now the highest average since 6.48 goals a game in the 1993-94 season, when Pavel Bure led the league with 60 goals for the Vancouver Canucks and Wayne Gretzky collected his 10th and final scoring title, with 130 points.

As it happens, Connor McDavid joined the NHL in the 2015-16 season. Since his arrival, he has consistently fueled the scoring trend. Already a four-time winner of the Art Ross Trophy for most points in a season, the 25-year-old is well on his way to a fifth scoring title this season.

In fact, McDavid currently tops virtually every offensive statistical category — with gaudy numbers and some extraordinary improvements on his own already lofty achievements.

In 36 games played this season, McDavid has 67 points. That’s 10 points more than teammate Leon Draisaitl, who’s second on the list, and it’s a 152-point pace over 82 games.

No one has cracked 150 points in a season since Mario Lemieux put up 161 in 1995-96. The best number since then was Nikita Kucherov’s 128-point showing in 2018-19.

McDavid’s personal best is 123 points from last season, but he showed that he can produce at this pace two years ago. This year, he’s back in the same ballpark as the pandemic-shortened 2020-21 season, when he posted 105 points in 56 games.

That was good enough for him to sweep the Hart Trophy voting as league MVP, with 100 out of 100 first-place votes, but it came with a bit of an asterisk. There was the shorter schedule, the division-only play, the lack of live fans who were able to witness his heroics in person — and the Oilers’ swift playoff exit, when they were swept in the first round by the Winnipeg Jets. McDavid’s status as the best in the game could not be affirmed, some argued, until he had proven himself in the postseason.

Last year, he did that. Edmonton reached the final four for the first time since 2006 and McDavid led all scorers with 33 points — despite the fact that he did not play in the final series.

This year, the Oilers are trying to build off that playoff success. Their results have been up and down: as of Dec. 29, they’re sitting just below the playoff bar in the Western Conference. But McDavid’s sublime season has been his best to date.

This year, he’s not just leading the league in points but also in goals, and by a significant margin: his 31 markers are five more than second-place Tage Thompson of the Buffalo Sabres. This is new territory: McDavid’s previous high was 44, last season. It’s also a 70-goal pace. That mark that has only been reached by eight players in NHL history, and not since the twin 76-goal campaigns of Teemu Selanne and Alexander Mogilny in 1992-93.

As the linchpin of the NHL’s best power play, McDavid is also currently the league’s most potent player with the man advantage. He leads the NHL with 14 power-play goals, one more than his teammate Draisaitl and two more than Thompson. Thirty-five of his 67 points have come on the power play — eight more than Draisaitl (27 points) and 13 more than anyone who isn’t on the Oilers. Thompson and Boston’s David Pastrnak each have 22, as does another Edmonton player, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.

Last season, McDavid led the NHL with 44 power-play points, including 10 goals. His current pace this year would get him to 31 goals and 79 points.

Yes, he’s averaging nearly a point a game on the power-play alone, where he plays just 4:18 per game. He also has a shot at setting the all-time record for power-play points in a season. Mario Lemieux holds the top four marks. In 1987-88, he scored 80 power-play points; he also logged 79 points in two other years.

League-wide, power-play scoring is up this season. Teams are connecting on 22.36% of their opportunities, an 8.5% increase over last season and the highest efficiency rate in 40 years (1982-83, 22.94%). Power play opportunities are also up by nearly 13% compared to the last two years, which saw just 2.89 man-advantage chances per team per game. This year’s rate of 3.26 opportunities per game is the highest since the 2014-15 season (3.27), but still nowhere near Lemieux’s record-setting 1987-88 season (5.46). The all-time high came in 2005-06, when NHL officials returned from the season-long lockout armed with instructions to crack down on obstruction fouls in order to help open up more scoring opportunities for the game’s most skilled players. That year, they awarded each team a whopping 5.85 power-play chances per game.

McDavid’s most recent power-play goal was also a game-winner in a crucial divisional matchup against the Calgary Flames on Tuesday.

It was his first power-play point in three games and, remarkably, just his fourth game-winning goal of the year. Draisaitl leads that category, with eight.

McDavid will look to extend his 16-game point streak and add to his otherworldly numbers when the Oilers visit the Seattle Kraken on Friday.