Seriously, just how good does Oilers' Connor McDavid plan on getting?

Just how good does Connor McDavid plan on getting?

Is 200 points, an unthinkable summit in the modern era of complex defensive structure and bigger, better goalies, within his reach?

You wouldn’t think so. Not when the highest total in the last 36 years is Wayne Gretzky’s 163. But 31 points in 10 games seemed like fantasy when the season began, too, and the Edmonton Oilers captain turned it into a jaw-dropping reality, joining Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux and Mike Bossy as the only players in NHL history to start that fast.

He is skating on hallowed ice this year, putting up numbers that haven’t been seen since the greatest players of all time were playing fire wagon hockey against five-foot-10 goalies in skinny brown pads.

This is once-in-a-generation stuff we’re watching. When a guy who’s won the Art Ross six times, the Ted Lindsay Five times and the Hart Trophy three times is off to the best start of his career — of just about anyone’s career — it shakes the entire league.

He is the fastest player in league history reach 20 assists. He joins Lemieux as the only player to register three five-point nights in the first 10 games. He joins Gretzky, Lemieux and Phil Esposito as the only players with 17 or more five-point games in their career.

On and on it goes. Even Leon Draisaitl, who is somehow being overshadowed when he has 10 goals in 10 games, says that what McDavid is doing is “not real.”

Now, 10 games is a small sample size, everyone understands that. Nobody averages 3.1 points per game for an entire season (in his 215-point campaign, Gretzky averaged 2.68).

McDavid needs 169 points over the last 74 games of the season to reach 200, which doesn’t seem doable given that his personal best is 153 points over 82 games. But he’s spent his whole career accomplishing things that don’t seem doable, and this year is another level entirely, so you never say never as far as he’s concerned.

And even if he plays the rest of the year at the best full-season pace of his career (1.87 points per game in 2022-23), he will end up with a staggering 169, the highest total since Lemieux in 1988-89.

As McDavid has said many times, the points are not what’s important. His legacy will ultimately be based on whether or not he ever wins a Stanley Cup. But it’s hard to ignore the points when he has 13 in the last three games and it seems like every night he’s being mentioned in the same breath as the Mount Rushmore of hockey stars.

And, as a means to that championship he’s chasing, McDavid is elevating his overall game to levels we haven’t seen before. Last year he had 132 points and was plus 17, this year he’s already plus 18.

• It’s also important to remember that McDavid is doing all of this on one of the biggest hometown discounts in NHL history. When the 2027 contracts for Cale Makar and Macklin Celebrini kick in, McDavid will be the 13th highest paid player in the league.

• If the plan was to balance things out and get everyone involved, the Oilers are not quite there yet.

McDavid, Draisaitl (second in league scoring with 21 points) and Evan Bouchard third in league scoring and first among defenceman with 19) have combined for 71 points on a team that has 47 goals.

• Whether to play McDavid and Draisaitl together or apart has long been debated in this town, but the latest batch of evidence is hard to argue with. The line is beyond dominant and the Oilers are 8-1-1. Can this last for 74 more games? Will it stand up in the playoffs? Those are legitimate questions. But it’s only October and there is a long time to get everything else sorted out.

And they haven’t all been 6-5 shootouts. In putting together that 8-1-1 record, the Oilers held their opponents to two or fewer goals in five of the last eight games.

“I think we’ve played really well as a team,” said Zach Hyman. “We’ve had some pretty spectacular performances, some pretty historic starts from some guys, but as a whole the team has really played well together.

“We’re putting the puck in a little more, we’re forechecking hard. I think it’s sustainable because it’s just the way we’re playing. It’s not like we’re doing anything out of the ordinary, we’re just playing the way Babs wants us to play.”

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