McDavid leaving his prime? Trending down? Edmonton Oilers superstar answers back

Connor McDavid is on track to score 48 goals this year and put up 135 points.

Not bad for a guy that some folks are suggesting is trending down now and moving out of his prime.

I first took note of this when that sharp observer of all things Oilers, Allan “Lowetide” Mitchell had this to say in early December on The Lowdown with Lowetide show, just after the Oilers had been shut out by the Wild of Minnesota 1-0.

Said Lowetide: “I’ve said before that I don’t think this is the year the Edmonton Oilers make the Stanley Cup final. And I believe that to be true. I think that there are some concerning things about the Edmonton Oilers… One of mine is that this year specifically, the puck is not going Connor McDavid’s way. Last night, late in the game, just a few seconds left, he had an opportunity to make a pass and it didn’t happen. It ended up, you know, going out to the neutral zone and that was basically ball game. McDavid is a supreme hockey player. He’s an outstanding player. And I’m never going to diss him, but I also am going to acknowledge that he is coming out of his prime now and he may not be able to carry the load for this organization.”

Then there was Daily Faceoff stats analyst Paul Pidutti on December 10th, just one week ago, digging into McDavid’s downward trends. “McDavid is competing for a scoring title with the worst 5-on-5 output of his 11-year career,” Pidutti said. “That’s a truly prolific player. But the numbers don’t lie. In hockey’s most common game state, he’s comfortably been his least productive ever… By nearly every possible measure below, the Oilers’ captain has stopped creating offense like the second coming of Mario Lemieux at 5-on-5. From basic stats to advanced measures, it’s mostly been a five-year fade.”

In McDavid’s defence, Pidutti pointed out that McDavid has been let down by his own teammates this year and that NHL Edge shows he’s still the fastest skater in the NHL.

Pidutti concluded: “This summer, I forecasted that he could still be the best player in the world in 2030. He’s that special. McDavid just isn’t the same cheat code he was in his mid-20s at even-strength. Ruling? Father Time offers four months of parole to prove he’s still better than Nathan MacKinnon.”

My take

1. I am Oilers fan and McDavid loyalist but I find such provocative statements to be of great interest, no kind of insult. I admit that at times watching McDavid this year I’ve wondered if he’s still the player he used to be. But even as I’ve had such fleeting thoughts, I’ve told myself to slow down, not judge McDavid or any other play with too great haste, and understand that his game might well go supernova at any moment.

Best of all, after 15 years of intensive video analysis at the Cult of Hockey of every Grade A shot for and against the Oilers, I’ve got a way to dig deep into McDavid’s game and discern if he has, indeed, fallen off.

The short answer? His attacking game is as good as it’s ever been. He’s still in his hockey prime. He’s struggled a bit on defence early in the season, but it’s mainly because he’s trying to do too much to win pucks in his own zone.

2. Major contributions to Grade A shots: Let’s first look at his overall major contributions to Grade A shots per game from 2021-22 to present. These are the shots, passes, screens, battles won and hard charges that directly contribute to Grade A shots.

So far this year McDavid is averaging 6.9 major contributions to Grade A shots per game, the same amount as he did in his peak scoring year of 2022-23 when he was also in on 6.9 per game.

3. Grade A shots per game. Now let’s look at the number of Grade A shots that McDavid has been able to get on net himself each game, almost always slots from the slot or inner slot, with some hard one-timer shots from outside the slot also included.

McDavid has connected on 2.7 Grade A shots per game. The only time he’s had more Grade A shots on net per game was in 2022-23 when he scored 64 goals. As mentioned, he’s now on track for 48 goals this year.

4. Grade A shots plus/minus per game. At the Cult of Hockey, we look at who helps create Grade A shots but also who makes mistakes on Grade A shots against.

This year, he’s creating as many Grade A shots at even strength as last year, 3.77 per 15 minutes of even strength play, which is down slightly from his high of 4.08 per 15 in 2023-24. Essentially, he’s attacking as well as he ever has at even strength.

McDavid was an iffy defender early in his career, then he trended up in the early 2020s, becoming much better at limiting his mistakes on defence, the lost battles, missed assignments and turnovers that tend to result in Grade A shots against.

But that’s not the case on defence his year. McDavid is part of a sizeable group of Oilers who try to do too much on defence. I’d put Darnell Nurse, Vasily Podkolzin and Matt Savoie in this same category, all high effort players, all hard-working, puck-winning defenders, but each of them prone to getting pulled out of position by going after the puck. If they win the battle, all is good. If they lose the battle, they often leave an open attacker in the slot, which is not even close to good.

In his effort to ramp up the play of his team, McDavid has been more prone this year than in other recent years to this kind of mistake.

I don’t see him down a quart on defence due to him being out of his prime, however, but as a result of him trying to lift a struggling team over his head all by himself.

He and the others would do well to slow it down a bit, read the play, and make sure they’re covering their own man or zone before they hustle maniacally after the puck.

Indeed, Darnell Nurse has done exactly that in the last month and he’s back to playing some of the best hockey of his NHL career, just as he consistently did last regular season.

McDavid might do well to follow Nurse’s lead and make sure, above all things, that the slot area is covered off, with no potential shooter left unmarked.

Other than that, McDavid is killing it as usual this year.

How long can he do that? I’ll dig in there in a future post.

At the Cult of Hockey

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