Where does Connor McDavid’s 2022-23 rank among the greatest seasons in NHL history?
Connor McDavid has given us a rare opportunity.
You know those signs that say, “IN CASE OF EMERGENCY: BREAK GLASS”? Well, today, we’re really doing it. We’re placing his performance among every season by a forward in NHL history. No. 97’s Earth-scorching, rocket-launching, physics-defying 2022-23 creates a conversation saved only for special occasions.
Most would agree that as a physical specimen of a hockey player, McDavid is surely the greatest talent the world has ever seen. But to do this right, we need to evaluate the Oilers’ captain in his own time and place.
No one has researched or typed more words in the last three years about historical context in hockey than yours truly. While it’s useful to have a peek at the top 20 era adjusted point seasons, simply providing this list and calling it a day isn’t enough for an all-time debate.
It’s a fun and fascinating list.
Adjusted scoring is critical to these conversations. But when talking all-time best, we need to refine things further. Let’s start with some boundaries:
- The evolution of the rules, the available talent, and the size of an NHL roster have our search begin post-1967 expansion. With all due respect to Howie Morenz and Cooney Weiland, their best work came right at the time when sliced bread was invented. Literally.
- We’re going to toss any seasons where a player didn’t suit up for 70 games. No abbreviated years. No gimmicky projections. We need the forward in the lineup sustaining their play over a complete season. This rules out McDavid’s “Canadian Division” season, any Sidney Crosby partial year, and perhaps hockey’s greatest triumph – Mario Lemieux’s 1992-93 comeback from Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
- Playmaking is swell, but to be in this exclusive debate, we need our candidates to have a minimum 60 adjusted goals. Goal scoring matters.
- Lastly, context beyond the numbers counts. The player’s situation is important – their personal circumstance, teammates, and off-ice pressures will be considered.
With the above factors in mind, we’re going to start at the top and count down, slotting in McDavid’s explosive 2022-23 along the way.
#1. Wayne Gretzky (1983-84)
McDavid’s season will not be labeled greatest ever. That distinction belongs to The Great One. Maybe you’ve heard of him? Skinny guy from Brantford. Has a vineyard. Broke some records a while back. When you have four 200-point seasons and no one else has any, you’re going to have a case for top spot. But why this one among 99’s greatest hits album chalk full of 1980s jams?
Era adjustments batter Gretzky’s point total “down” to 163, fourth most all-time. Context matters here. This was the year the living legend won the Art Ross by 63%(!) over second, a personal best. He won the goal scoring crown by 31, the assist title by 32, and scored 79 points more than runner-up, teammate Paul Coffey. Yikes.
Off the ice, Gretzky in 1983-84 is highly relatable to McDavid today. He was coming off the team’s deepest playoff run, a humbling Finals sweep vs. the Islanders. His team’s style of play was criticized. He had a mantle full of hardware, but no Stanley Cup ring. So, he came back with a vengeance, hitting his highest points-per-game mark, ultimately leading the Oilers to their first of four Cups in five years. Edmonton fans are hoping history repeats itself.
#2. Mario Lemieux (1995-96)
The circumstances around Lemieux’s 1995-96 are unprecedented. After missing 177 games in five seasons battling chronic back issues, blood cancer, and 22 radiation treatments, Super Mario was physically ravaged. He sat out the 1994-95 lockout-shortened year to recharge. Lemieux would return at age 30, six years removed from a complete season.
NHL scoring had fallen sharply. 1995-96’s offensive environment matches that of our modern-day hero McDavid’s 2022-23. Lemieux would stay in the lineup for 70 games and would record the greatest adjusted pace of modern times (78/104/183 per 82 games). In an unparalleled career of starts, stops, comebacks, and inextinguishable brilliance, this is Mario’s top entry.
#3. Mario Lemieux (1988-89)
Lemieux’s second cameo comes seven years earlier, his last season at full health. He was only 23. By the raw numbers, Mario fell one point short of joining Gretzky’s 200-point club. The most incredible part of this performance is somehow not the on-ice work.
Rather, it’s that Lemieux was robbed of both the Hart (runner-up to Gretzky’s L.A. debut) and the Pearson (his peers voted Steve Yzerman the winner).
How’s this for an MVP case?
- He won the scoring title by 31 points.
- He set the NHL shorthanded goals record (13) and scored the second-most power play goals in history (31) at the time.
- He went +41 on a team outscored that year.
- The Penguins had come fifth or sixth in the division the last six years. They jumped to second.
#4. Wayne Gretzky (1981-82)
If McDavid is showing us what hockey evolution looks like, this was Gretzky in 1981-82. At age 21, he shattered Phil Esposito’s goals record… by a head-scratching 16 goals.
What holds Gretzky’s year back is the chaos of the NHL’s shifting landscape at the time. After the 1979 WHA merger, the league had gone from six to 21 teams in just a dozen seasons. The product was certainly diluted and would take a few more years to stabilize and benefit from the ongoing influx of European talent.
#5. Connor McDavid (2022-23)
We’ve arrived at McDavid’s current masterpiece – the fifth-best season of them all.
The NHL scoring climate has quietly jumped the last few years. In fact, it’s up around 18% since McDavid’s debut in 2015-16. Goals are flying again. As a result, his exceptional season is No. 10 all-time on the post-expansion adjusted points list, not in the top handful that we might expect given his dominance.
So, what makes his season so special? McDavid continues to change hockey.
- A physical marvel, his feet, hands, and brain operate in tandem at unparalleled speed. With highlight-reel plays on a nightly basis, he is at least partially responsible for the NHL’s growing and welcome obsession with skill, speed, and ultimately, offence.
- A video game cheat code, McDavid has reimagined what’s possible for in-game impact. After a quarter century of teams focused on goal prevention, it’s comebacks and trading scoring chances that are sexy again.
- McDavid has turned the power play into an art form. Since tracking began, this year’s Edmonton power play is No. 1 in history (32.6% at the time of this writing). NHL save percentages once averaged in the .870s. This Oilers unit is still better than any team from that era. A miraculous feat.
- The NHL has never been better. The influx of European and American talent, combined with advanced training and coaching, makes the current landscape inherently harder to dominate. A contentious point among traditionalists, Gretzky and Lemieux played primarily in a Canadian-controlled sport, only seeing the full effect of the international footprint in their twilight years.
- Goal scoring matters among the best handful of all-time performances. Adjusted or unadjusted, this is the first time McDavid scored at above a 44-goal pace in a full season. Adding all-world goal scoring credentials launches his year into the previously untouchable Gretzky/Lemieux stratosphere.
Closing Thoughts
We often talk about generational players. McDavid has had a generational season.
Goals. Assists. Consistency. Full health. It’s been over two decades since a forward — Jaromir Jagr — delivered a complete performance that holds up historically.
With PHWA Award voting ballots due later this month, the Oilers’ captain is a lock to win his third Hart Trophy as league MVP. The only question is whether it will be unanimous. McDavid is also a near certainty to become the first player since Alex Ovechkin (2007-08) to nab the quartet of major awards – Hart, Lindsay, Ross, and Richard Trophies.
There you have it. McDavid’s electric 2022-23 is the fifth-best forward season in NHL history. At 26 years old, Connor’s far from done. Can he possibly find another gear? To be on the safe side, let’s not replace that broken emergency glass just yet. Based on what we’ve witnessed, we may need to do this again next year.
Paul Pidutti is the creator of the Adjusted Hockey project, which brings context to hockey statistics. His Hockey Hall of Fame methodology, the Pidutti Point Share (PPS) system, is the first comprehensive measure of HHOF worthiness. You can find his work on Twitter (@AdjustedHockey) and adjustedhockey.com.
Adjusted GP & Pace stats from Adjusted Hockey; all other data from Hockey Reference
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