For just about the entire history of the Edmonton Oilers popular thought was that nobody would ever be able to pass Wayne Gretzky’s point record with the team.
The Great One sits atop the NHL record book with an astounding 2,857 points throughout his 20-year career, 1,669 of which came as a member of the Oilers, a franchise record for the club. Considering the fact that only 10 players in NHL history have scored 1,600 points it was safe to say that this was an Oilers franchise record that nobody seriously thought could be broken.
That is until Connor McDavid came into the picture. The current Oilers captain just celebrated his 1,000th NHL point earlier this month, becoming the fourth-fastest player in NHL history to do so in just 659 games. At the age of 27, McDavid probably has at least another decade of hockey in him and, if he stays in Edmonton, could very well pass Gretzky’s point record with the team.
Right now, McDavid is fourth in Oilers history when it comes to points with 1,010, behind only Gretzky, Mark Messier, and Jari Kurri. However, he needs just 33 more points to propel himself into second place.
NHL.com
So, working under the assumption that McDavid will sign another long-term extension with the Oilers, how long could it take until we can seriously expect him to unseat Gretzky? Let’s take a look at how he has scored throughout his career.
During McDavid’s 10 seasons in the NHL, he has scored 100 or more points seven times and over 110 throughout the last three seasons. He is once again on pace to eclipse the 100-point mark this season, which would put him around 1,100 career points by the time the final buzzer rings on the 2023-24 regular season.
That will be the starting point for this prediction and we’ll assume McDavid will have 1,100 points under his belt as the 2025-26 season gets underway. If we want to be conservative in our estimate and assume he will hit the 100-point plateau consistently over the next few seasons, he would pass Gretzky on the Oilers leaderboard sometime in about six years, probably during the 2030-31 season.
However, that could be shortened if McDavid could string together a few 120-point seasons over that time. It may be a tad unrealistic to say he will put up six consecutive 120-point years, so let’s handicap that down and say he will score at least 120 points in each of the next three seasons and regress down to a flat 100 after that.
If that is the case, that would put him within striking distance of Gretzky’s mark during the 2029-30 season, which is just five seasons away. If McDavid signs an eight-year extension with the team, this could be something he achieves in year four of that new deal, leaving him with at least four more seasons with the team to add to that total.
This is dependent on many factors, good health being a big one, but if McDavid sticks around Edmonton, he has a chance to do something that was not thought to be possible, which is to make sure that Gretzky no longer holds a franchise record for points.