Diving into Connor McDavid’s 10-game goal drought, and how he’s remained productive

Heading into Wednesday night’s action, Edmonton Oilers superstar Connor McDavid is running up a 10-game scoreless drought, leaving a burning question in everyone’s mind: when will he score again?

If McDavid doesn’t record a goal in tonight’s game against the St. Louis Blues, it will mark the longest scoreless drought of his career, but it’s not like the former Hart Trophy winner can’t find twine. And more importantly, It’s not like he isn’t contributing to any points on the Oilers scoresheet.

On Monday, the Oilers snapped a three-game losing streak with a 4-2 victory against the Los Angeles Kings. However, McDavid only contributed his offensive prowess to assisting on Zach Hyman’s goal in the first period and Evan Bouchard’s later in the third, a trending pattern seen in McDavid’s play recently.

McDavid’s production this season is right in line with where it’s been in recent years, scoring 21 goals, 70 assists and 91 points in 54 games this year. His 1.69 points per game pace is up over his career average of 1.51, and he’s keeping up in the Art Ross Trophy race with Nikita Kucherov and Nathan MacKinnon. His numbers are down this year in his goal-scoring and shot-taking categories, with a .39 goals per game rate down from his career average of .52, and a shots per game rate of 3.33 below his 3.42 career average rate. 

Although he may not be scoring goals over this streak, the Oilers captain has amassed 21 points in 10 games, all as assists.

“I’ve always played with guys that can finish, you know guys that can score goals,” McDavid said ahead of puck drop on Monday. “I like getting assists, too. I like contributing that way. I like setting teammates up. I like making those plays and I still feel like I’m creating lots and getting lots.

“I’ve been passing away some opportunities every now and then. I think back to some two-on-ones – passing away, some good looks in the slot — passing away, so maybe there’s a little bit of that.”

McDavid has not found the back of the net since February 6th when the Oilers dropped a 3-1 loss to the Las Vegas Golden Knights. The last time McDavid went this long without scoring was in 2016-17, when McDavid replicated his current skid from October 30th to November 17th. However, during that time, his overall production was significantly less than as of late.

In addition, the second-highest scoreless streak the forward has had in previous seasons is eight, with the most recent being earlier season between October 19th and November 11th when McDavid was dealing with an injury.

Here’s a look at McDavid’s 11 longest goalless streaks:

Despite McDavid using humour to address the situation, sarcastically saying he isn’t going to shoot the puck anymore or score any more goals, he is on pace to achieve 104 assists this season, a number no Oilers player has reached since Wayne Gretzky in 1990-91 – and could become another thing linking their name together.

So, the former Art Trophy winner is still contributing to the Oilers’ offence; he’s still playing great, but can the market bet on him breaking his scoreless skid on Wednesday? Fingers crossed.