Connor McDavid might benefit from some sage advice.
I have always been awfully reluctant to tell this marvelous specimen of a hockey player how to ply his trade.
But perhaps if it came from someone who has way more experience in such things than plain ol’ me.
That and more in this edition of…
9 Things
9. The Bakersfield Condors have an exciting product to watch this season. But this next stretch will test them. The Condors have taken flight on what will be their longest road trip in 28 years: A six-game stretch in twelve days. They beat Tucson 3-1 Saturday.
8. There has been lots wrong with the Edmonton Oilers so far this season. But veteran Ryan Nugent-Hopkins has not been one of them. He is on pace for a 93+ point season (52-41-93) after nine games. It is early, and the sample is relatively small but he has been good.
7. Connor McDavid is the third fastest player in NHL history to register 200 multi-assist games. McDavid’s three-assist night against Montreal was regular season Game #720. Mario Lemieux did it in 580 games. Wayne Gretzky accomplished the feat in 449 GP. More Connor just ahead…
6. I did not disagree with the assessment of the officiating in Oilers-Canadiens game the other night. But Montreal still surrendered six goals to a team that has not been able to score all season who you ked twice. Perhaps at least glance in a mirror as you wring your hands. It is a loser’s lament.
5. Expected goals differential among the Oilers active roster Defencemen going into Saturday’s action against Seattle, according to Natural Stat Trick: Mattias Ekholm 3.8, Evan Bouchard 2.5, Jake Walman 0.8, Ty Emberson 0.3, Brett Kulak -0.7, Troy Stecher -1.0, Darnell Nurse -1.8. More on the Edmonton D-corps in a minute…
4. Edmonton really needs Jack Roslovic to produce. But Roslovic easily had his best game as an Oiler on Saturday. He did pretty much everything but score against Seattle. 5v5 Scoring Chances (his calling card) were 14-2, High Dangers 5-0. His CF was a sparkling 26-6, 81%. And his Expected Goals For was second only to Leon Draisaitl, 1.41 on the night. Those numbers suggest its coming.
3. It is official: These Edmonton Oilers struggle to get out of the gate. This season is not their worst start in recent memory. In terms of pure wins and losses and ignoring “Bettman points”, that belongs to 2023-24 where they were a dreadful 2-7 in their first 9 GP (one OT loss) and a dismal GF-GA of 25-36. There was no where to go but up in 2024-25 but they still barely managed to do that, just 4-5 in their first 9 GP (three OT losses) with a GF-GA of 21-29. And in this season, they have been better by only the very slimmest of definitions: 4-5 in the first 9 GP (one shootout loss). And the GF-GA differential at 26-28 is but a shade better. Hmmm.
2. At the start of the year there had been a bit of talk about the Edmonton Oilers’ blueline. Both The Athletic and TSN projected the Oilers D-corps somewhere between top five and the best in the entire league. And when you looked at the group on paper from one through nine it was easy enough to agree with those projections. So far, the Oilers are just in the middle of the pack amongst NHL teams when it comes to the most goals against (27, which is #19 out of 32 teams) and this blueline has been plagued by big mistakes. Both Darnell Nurse and (more recently) Mattias Ekholm have struggled in this regard. But both of them pale in comparison to beleaguered Evan Bouchard who is -10. But Saturday, among a few more painful defensive sequences, Bouchard scored one beauty of a goal. His first of the campaign. Maybe that will calm his bad case of the yips and encourage some much-needed confidence.
1.So, what is up with Connor McDavid? He registered 0 shot attempts in Saturday’s loss. There is no question McDavid contributes far more to the Oilers than just shots on net. That would be the shallowest of analysis. This is a fabulous player who skates like no other and leads offensive sorties up ice like an ace. But according to Sportsnet Stats, that (no shot attempts) has only happened five other times in his entire NHL regular season career. No, the #97 we watched against the Seattle Kraken sure did not look like the guy who at the outset of the season said he wanted to shoot more. Quote:
“I want to prove that scoring 50 or 60 is not a one-off”, McDavid told Sportsnet’s Mark Spector. “Part of my talent is the ability to change my mind. But at times it can take away from shooting the puck, taking it to the net, taking it to the whole, whatever it is”.
All that makes sense. But the statistics say Connor McDavid continues to trend away from being a shooter. Four seasons ago in 2022-23 when he scored 64 times he averaged 4.30 shots per game. He fell to 32 goals in 2023-24 with a SPG average of 3.46.
Last year, 2024-25, he scored just 26 times. Yes, part of that was injury. But his SPG average still dipped even further, to 2.93. And so far in 2025-26? McDavid is averaging a four-year low of 2.78 SPG. That points in one direction: Down.
The Oilers deserved better against the Kraken. According to my Cult of Hockey colleague David Staples, Grade “A” shots for were 17-9 in Edmonton’s favor, five-alarm chances 7-2 Oilers. Joey Daccord was great, no doubt about it.
And look: It is just nine games. That is a small sample, probably not representative of where McDavid will end up. But for now, the math says what the math says. And you will not score on Daccord if he never has to stop you.
It was the great Wayne Gretzky who said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”.
Sound advice.
This article is not AI generated.
Leavins Cult of Hockey
Recently, at The Cult…
STAPLES: The Edmonton Oilers get “goalie-d” in 3-1 loss to the Kraken
LEAVINS: Oilers storm back twice to beat Habs 6-5
Bruce McCurdy, 1955-2025.
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