In the Edmonton Oilers’ 4-3 overtime loss to the Nashville Predators at Bridgeport Arena on Tuesday (Jan. 13), centre Connor McDavid notched two assists to extend his current streak to 20 games with at least one point.
Related: 4 Takeaways From Oilers’ 4-3 Overtime Loss to Predators
McDavid has been on an incredible run since beginning this streak on Dec. 4, when he had a hat trick and added an assist to lead Edmonton to a 4-1 victory over the Seattle Kraken at Rogers Place. Over the last 20 games, he’s totalled 19 goals and 27 assists.
Before this current streak, McDavid’s longest run of consecutive games with a point in a single season was 17, which he had achieved three times (Spanning multiple seasons, McDavid’s longest streak of games with a point is 25, from the end of 2020-21 through the beginning of 2021-22).
But this is not just the longest single-season point streak of the Oilers captain’s career. It’s arguably the best stretch of hockey by any NHL player in a generation. Here’s a closer look:
McDavid Is in Rare Company
McDavid is only the 23rd player in NHL history to record at least one point in 20 or more games in a single season. Most of the other members of that club, however, played during the NHL’s highest scoring era in the ‘80s and early ‘90s: Since the 1996-97 season, there have now been just eight single-season point streaks of 20 or more games. Prior to McDavid, the last to do it was Mitch Marner, who had 23 straight games with at least one point as a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2022-23.
The last season that saw someone reel off 20 straight games with a point while wearing an Oilers jersey was 1985-86: From Nov. 3, 1985, to Jan. 25, 1986, nearly 40 years ago, Wayne Gretzky had a streak of 39 consecutive games with at least one goal or assist.
Gretzky has the most single-season point streaks of at least 20 games, with seven. Five of those came as a member of the Oilers, including his remarkable NHL record of 51 games during 1983-84. Besides Gretzky, the only other Edmonton player to achieve the feat is Paul Coffey, who during the 1985-86 season had a point in 28 straight games, which is an NHL record for defencemen.
McDavid Is Piling up Points
It obviously takes tremendous consistency to pick up a point for 20 games in a row. But McDavid is rarely limited to just one mention in the scoring summary: during this streak, he’s had 14 multipoint games. As a result, he has totalled 46 points over the last 20 games, which is near-inconceivable in this era of NHL hockey.
The last time an NHL player had more than 45 points over a stretch of 20 games within a single season came almost 30 years ago, from Dec. 11, 1996, to Jan. 26, 1997, when Mario Lemieux scored 21 goals and recorded 25 assists. Lemieux and McDavid are the only players to rack up 46 or more points in a span of 20 games during one season since 1991-92.
As far as Oilers history is concerned, McDavid’s 46 points are the most by an Edmonton player over a 20-game stretch in a single season since Gretzky totalled six goals and 40 assists from Feb. 14 to April 3, 1988. Besides McDavid and Gretzky, the only other Oilers to record at least 45 points over 20 games in one season are Coffey, Jari Kurri and Mark Messier, all during the 1980s.
McDavid Continues to Chase History
With each game that he extends his streak, McDavid moves into rarer air, and that air is about to get extremely rare so long as he keeps it going.
There are currently only 19 players in NHL history with a single-game point streak of at least 21 games. At 22 games, that number drops to 16. If McDavid can get to 27 straight games, he will be in company with only Coffey, Gretzky, Guy Lafleur, Lemieux, Mats Sundin and Steve Yzerman.
While McDavid is not even halfway to Gretzky’s single-season record of 51 straight games with a point, the Oilers do have enough games remaining on their schedule that he could equal or surpass it. Edmonton plays 35 more times in 2025-26, and McDavid is 31 games from tying and 32 games from breaking Gretzky’s record that is mostly considered untouchable.
But McDavid has a long way to go before he can start thinking about that. It starts with just keeping the streak going in Edmonton’s next game, at home against the New York Islanders on Thursday (Jan. 15).
