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Connor McDavid is the first to say that he doesn’t care about personal accolades.
If there was ever any doubt, he put action behind those words when he elected not to accept the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP after the Edmonton Oilers’ Game 7 loss to the Florida Panthers last June — with his reaction caught on tape by the producers of Prime Video’s Faceoff docuseries.
But no matter how McDavid feels about his accolades, 1,000 career points in the NHL is a major milestone. Within the next week, we’ll find out whether or not he’ll beat out a pair of Hall of Famers as one of the fastest ever to get there.
After his two-goal outing in the Oilers’ overtime loss to the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday, the Oilers captain is now at 990 points in 652 games.
According to NHL Stats, the players who got to 1,000 points the quickest are the two that you’d expect. Wayne Gretzky needed just 424 games, and Mario Lemieux took 513. They were also the two youngest: Gretzky was just 23 years and 328 days old when he hit the mark, while Lemieux was at 26 years and 171 days.
Third place is where it gets interesting on both lists. Mike Bossy got to 1,000 in the third-fewest games — 656. And Steve Yzerman was the third youngest, at 27 years and 291 days.
It hasn’t even been 10 months since McDavid hit the 900-point mark against the Philadelphia Flyers on Jan. 2, 2024. That was part of a five-point outing that got him to 903. So, counting that game, McDavid went from 900 to 990 in just 51 games.
Once again, Gretzky was the fastest to get from 900 career points to 1,000, needing just 39 games. Lemieux was second, at 51. In this category, Phil Esposito holds down third place at 54 games.
Here’s Edmonton’s schedule for the next week:
On Halloween, McDavid will be 27 years and 292 days old. So he’d need 10 points in Edmonton’s next three games to beat Yzerman. He also needs 10 points in three games to beat Bossy — but that wouldn’t necessarily have to be the next three games on the schedule. If he was absent for any reason, the countdown would be deferred.
Ten points in three games would also tie him with Esposito for third-fastest in going from 900 to 1,000.
For mere mortals, the idea of 10 points in three games is a pipe dream. But McDavid has been doing it with some regularity of late.
In the last two seasons alone, he has logged 10 points or more in a three-game span four times, including once in the playoffs. Two of those runs could technically count twice — they were four-game stretches where he reached 10 points in both Games 1- to 3 and Games 2 to 4.
McDavid’s most recent case of scoring 10 points in three games came just four months ago. In the Stanley Cup final, right after his now-famous ‘Dig In!’ speech at the end of Game 2, he led his team by example with two points in Game 3, four in Game 4 and four more in Game 5 as the Oilers clawed their way back into the series.
McDavid also collected 10 points in three games twice during the 2023-24 regular season: with 12 points over three games right after U.S. Thanksgiving, then 10 assists in three games just after the 2024 All-Star Game — six against Detroit on Feb. 13, three in St. Louis on Feb. 15 and one more in Dallas on Feb. 17.
During his career-best 2022-23 season, when he put up 153 points, he had a run of 11 points in three games — which wrapped up with two goals and two assists in Columbus on Feb. 25, 2023.
Will next Monday be deja vu?
As the 2-4-1 Oilers have struggled to find their footing during the early part of this season, an offensive surge by the game’s best active player would be most welcome on a club that’s averaging just two goals a game.
The Oilers’ power play needs to get going — and Kris Knoblauch split up his main unit in practice on Wednesday in hopes of finding a spark. It has been a staple during the McDavid years in Edmonton, peaking at an NHL-best 32.4 percent in 2022-23. But so far this year, it’s a grim 2-for-19, or 10.5 percent.
After becoming just the fourth player in NHL history to register 100 assists last season, McDavid needs his teammates to start finding the back of the net. His regular linemates, Zach Hyman and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, are both still looking for their first goals this season.
Related: NHL Power Rankings: Time To Show The New No. 1 Team Some Respect
Fittingly, McDavid is set to become the 99th player in NHL history to reach the 1,000-point milestone whenever he does it. Brad Marchand is the next-closest active player at 933 points.
If McDavid doesn’t get to 1,000 by next Monday, he’ll almost certainly claim fourth place on each of the ‘fastest’ lists. Peter Stastny got to 1,000 in 682 games played, while Dale Hawerchuk was the fourth-youngest — the only other player to hit the mark before his 28th birthday, at 27 years and 338 days.
The fourth-fastest journey from 900 to 1,000 points is also well within McDavid’s reach — Marcel Dionne currently holds that spot at 63 games.
