"I saw the skill set last year, that it was there," said Oilers forward Milan Lucic, who played against McDavid in the Pacific Division last season as a member of the Los Angeles Kings. "I even told people that he'd be right at the top, fighting for the scoring championship before the year even started. He's been our best player all year long. He's carried the load when we needed him to."
McDavid led the League in scoring or was at least tied for the lead every day since Nov. 22. He had a League-high 30 multi-point games, including 11 games with three points. McDavid closed the regular season on a 14-game point streak. He had 25 points (seven goals, 18 assists) during the streak.
However, perhaps the most impressive thing McDavid did this season was lead the Oilers back into the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since 2006.
Edmonton finished second in the Pacific Division with 103 points (47-26-9), including 19-5-4 in games when McDavid scored a goal. They will open the playoffs against the San Jose Sharks in the Western Conference First Round. Game 1 is at Rogers Place on Wednesday (10 p.m. ET; Sportsnet, TVA Sports, USA).
The Oilers won 16 more games and had 33 more points than last season (31 wins, 70 points). They scored 44 more goals and allowed 35 fewer than last season. They scored 13 more power-play goals. McDavid scored or assisted on 27 of Edmonton's 56 power-play goals.
"It's crazy to think about," McDavid said. "I look at this time last year and it was a real dark period. We were out of it, the fans were hard on us and not a lot of good things were going on. But we're definitely happy to be in this position this year."
McDavid's impact goes way beyond his own personal stats.
The Oilers outscored the opposition by more than one goal per every 60 minutes played at 5-on-5 with McDavid on the ice, according to stats.hockeyanalysis.com. They were even when he wasn't on the ice.
In addition, every Oilers player who played at least 100 minutes with McDavid had a better shot-attempts percentage (SAT) with him than without him.
"The best thing about it is that he's having fun with it," Lucic said. "He's going out there and he's just having fun and playing the game and loving the game. I think it's been contagious throughout the whole team."
Voting totals (points awarded on a 5-4-3-2-1 basis): Connor McDavid, Edmonton Oilers 68; Sidney Crosby, Pittsburgh Penguins, 52; Sergei Bobrovsky, Columbus Blue Jackets, 23; Brad Marchand, Boston Bruins, 21; Brent Burns, San Jose Sharks, 16; Patrick Kane, Chicago Blackhawks, 13; Auston Matthews, Toronto Maple Leafs, 6; Erik Karlsson, Ottawa Senators, 5; Nikita Kucherov, Tampa Bay Lightning, 4; Devan Dubnyk, Minnesota Wild, 1; Jonathan Toews, Chicago Blackhawks, 1
