McDavid’s playmaking puts him on a different level
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When is the last time we have seen a playmaker the calibre of Edmonton’s Connor McDavid?
It’s a question I’ve been pondering watching these Oilers games, where McDavid’s skill seemingly puts him head and shoulders above everyone else playing the sport of hockey right now. Perhaps the answer is in-his-prime Sidney Crosby. Perhaps we have to go as far back as The Great One, Wayne Gretzky. At least a small part of me wonders if we have ever seen a player the calibre of McDavid.
He may not be the best passer of the puck we have ever seen, but he also doesn’t need to be.
McDavid’s 100th percentile speed opens up passing lanes that simply don’t exist for other players. You watch vaunted defensive teams – Edmonton’s past three opponents are the Vegas Golden Knights, Dallas Stars, and now the Florida Panthers in the Stanley Cup Final – capitulate whenever he is on the ice. It’s because he can create time and space whenever he wants, wherever he wants.
His carving up of the Panthers penalty kill in Game 2 would have been a career highlight for many, but with McDavid it feels like standard operating procedure.
One of the most impressive parts of McDavid’s career is how regularly he’s been able to turn it up when it matters most: in the postseason. So much of Edmonton’s electric offence is born from McDavid’s playmaking, and his corresponding assist rates feel like they are from a different planet.
Consider his career trajectory from an assist perspective just compared to league averages over this same time period:
McDavid has been a scoring force in every postseason, but it’s the gap between him and the typical forward that’s breathtaking.
Since Edmonton’s last postseason miss in 2019, McDavid has been racking up points en masse, a testament to how much of Edmonton’s offence starts on his stick. His 34 assists (and 42 total points) in the 2023-24 Stanley Cup Playoffs was otherworldly, but he’s already logged 25 assists (and 31 total points) during this postseason, and there may be as many as five more games left in this series against Florida.
In aggregate, it’s hard to find a comparable for McDavid’s assist rates, certainly in the modern era. And it’s not for a lack of talent – players like Crosby, Nikita Kucherov, and even teammate Leon Draisaitl have had explosive scoring postseasons in the past. But none seem to compare to the likes of McDavid.
If you look at every single forward who has logged a minimum of 1,500 minutes of playoff time since the 2007-08 season, you’ll see just how extraordinary the gap is:
There are as many forwards headed to the Hall of Fame on this leaderboard than not, which speaks for itself, and all of them pale in comparison to McDavid. And this isn’t a player who is padding assist rates through some generous secondary assist accreditation – McDavid’s averaging 2.0 primary assists per 60 minutes played, a number no other forward has touched over nearly two decades.
Show any of this to McDavid, and you know what his response will be: none of it matters until the Oilers win a Stanley Cup and have their names engraved in history. But do not discount what you are watching – this is generational greatness.
Appreciate it for what it is, and enjoy the final games of the 2024-25 season.
Data via Natural Stat Trick, NHL.com, Evolving Hockey