Why Is Oilers’ McDavid Not Scoring Like He Used To?

Edmonton Oilers superstar captain Connor McDavid is pretty much beyond reproach in Oil Country, and understandably so.

Since being drafted first overall in the 2015 NHL Draft, McDavid has won the Art Ross Trophy five times, the Hart Memorial Trophy three times and the Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy, as the league’s goal leader, once. He’s led the Oilers to the Stanley Cup Final each of the last two years and helped them get within one game of a championship in 2024.

For a decade, he’s dedicated himself to Edmonton, trying to bring hockey’s greatest trophy to this Stanley Cup-starved city. And he recently signed a two-year contract extension that will pay him less than he could have commanded, thus giving the Oilers more cap space to build a championship-calibre roster.

Most people in McDavid’s shoes wouldn’t have done that. Others might have decided to take their talents elsewhere: Maybe somewhere more glamorous or warmer, or somewhere that’s not a 24-7 hockey fishbowl where they can exist in relative anonymity. Or maybe they just would have gone wherever the money was greatest.

But McDavid is still in Edmonton, through 2027-28, at least, and he’s sticking around at a discounted rate, to boot. For these reasons alone, he deserves incredible admiration and praise.

With all that said, however, the question must be asked: what the heck has happened to McDavid’s goal-scoring output?

McDavid Scored NHL’s Most Goals in 2022-23

In 2022-23, McDavid led the NHL with 64 goals, the most in a single season since Alexander Ovechkin lit the lamp 65 times in 2007-08. In the process, he joined one of hockey’s most exclusive clubs, becoming just the 23^rd player in league history with a 60-goal campaign.

It was McDavid’s sixth consecutive season averaging at least 0.5 goals per game, and the fourth time during that span that he’d tallied more than 40 goals.

With McDavid having already surpassed 300 career NHL goals at age 26, it appeared he would be a scoring machine for years to come. The question wasn’t whether he would win another “Rocket” Richard Trophy, but how many more times he would lead the NHL in goals. At the very least, a continued run of 40-goal campaigns seemed certain. But that’s not how things have gone.

McDavid’s Output Has Dropped Significantly

In 2023-24, McDavid scored 32 times in 76 games (0.42 per game), his lowest goal total and average since 2016-17. Then, last season, McDavid had only 26 goals in 67 contests (0.39 per game), which was the fewest times he’d scored since he was a rookie in 2015-16.