Entering his 12th year in the National Hockey League, Edmonton Oilers superstar Connor McDavid is off and running to the best statistical start to a season in his Hall of Fame career.
The Oilers captain recorded his second five-point outing on the year in a 6-2 win over the Utah Mammoth on Saturday night, bringing his season total to six goals and 19 assists for a league-leading 23 points, the best mark since Mario Lemiuex’s all-time best of 27 through eight games in 1995.
The Richmond Hill, Ont., native is now on pace for 241 points over the NHL’s new 84-game regular season schedule, a mark that would shatter his career best of 153 and would place him alongside another Oilers great in Wayne Gretzky as the only players in league history to eclipse the 200-point mark.
It is no coincidence that McDavid’s red-hot start has come after new head coach Mike Babcock placed fellow Hart Trophy winner Leon Draisaitl on his wing in a re-worked Oilers top line.
“I think Leo and I, when we did play together it was just a one-off or a situation where we needed to find one and we knew it wasn’t necessarily a long-term thing,” McDavid said. “So, to be able to have a stretch of games playing together - who knows what happens moving forward - but playing together has been so much fun, obviously, along with [Vasily Podkolzin] and [Mattias Ekholm] and [Evan Bouchard].
“I’ve said all along being out there with those guys, everybody knows where each other is, everybody has been reading off each other, playing fast, and everybody can make a play. It’s a pretty fun group to be out there with.”
Babcock, now in his first season with the Oilers after being cleared to return to an NHL bench following an investigation into his brief tenure with the Columbus Blue Jackets, has been forced to shuffle his lines with numerous injuries to Edmonton’s forward group.
In the past, McDavid and Draisaitl have occasionally been deployed on the same line together under head coaches Jay Woodcroft and Kris Knoblauch at times when team needed an offensive spark.
But in the early days of the 2026-27 campaign, the two have consistently shared the ice and look better than ever playing beside one another, dominating at even strength and on special teams to help lead the Oilers to a 6-1-1 record.
Despite the overwhelmingly positive early returns, Babcock stopped short of guaranteeing the Oilers’ top line would stay together as the team continues to get healthier over the coming weeks.
“That’s just the way we’ve done it,” Babcock said. “When we get other people back, that doesn’t mean they’re playing together. We’re in a spot that we felt we really needed to push with one group and survive with the rest.”
Draisaitl has scored six goals with eight assists for 14 points so far as he tracks for a career-high 147 points, while left winger Vasily Podkolzin has chipped in seven goals and 11 points in a dominant start for Edmonton’s top line.
While the top line may not remain together as the season rolls along, the trio are making the most of their time together so far – with McDavid shining the brightest.
“Well, I like the plus-19, so that would be the focus for me,” Babcock said of McDavid’s play. “You’re playing against good people and you’re doing things, obviously 5-on-5, to dominate the game. [McDavid and Draisaitl] are playing together and they’re playing well, and [Podkolzin] is a real good player who gives them the dimension just like [Zach Hyman] would give them.”
Babcock, who coached Canada to two Olympic gold medals, is no stranger to coaching high-end talent. He said what has stood out with McDavid in the early days of his Oilers tenure has been his ability to lead both on and off the ice with his play and his actions.
“I just think he’s a real good player, but what he is is a better person, a better man, and he drives his teammates not by what he says because you get confused with leadership - it’s not what you say, it’s what you do. It’s what you model each and every day, and he does it right,” said Babcock.
Edmonton returns home to kick off a five-game homestand on Tuesday as McDavid and the Oilers’ top line look to keep rolling against the Calgary Flames.