McDavid 674 assists in 672 games

[Video Nasty]

Active Players McDavid Trails in Assists:

• 30 fewer assists than Ovechkin (771 less games played)

• 51 fewer assists than Giroux (539 less games played)

• 140 fewer assists than Malkin (504 less games played)

• 141 fewer assists than Kopitar (730 less games played)

• 144 fewer assists than Kane (582 less games played)

• 349 fewer assists than Crosby (631 less games played)

If McDavid plays another 673 games (his current career total), his production could decline by 30% starting now and he would still reach 1,150 assists—currently 6th all-time. In that scenario, players ranked #2–5 would still have played 250–400 more games than him.

What’s more likely is that McDavid will trail only Gretzky by the time he hangs them up.

 

[UpHere]

Peter Šťastný was above after 4 seasons and one short after 6.

Peter feels like one of the forgotten superstars - he was so good... but not many talk about best 6th-10th

 

[benfranklin]

Honestly one of the better threads ive seen in a while about McDavid without cherry picking or throwing shade at someone else.

Looks like others to do it/close (within 300 lol) were:

Player	GP	A	Difference
Wayne Gretzky	1,487	1,963	476
Mario Lemieux	915	1,033	118
Connor McDavid	673	677	4
Peter Forsberg	708	636	-72
Artemi Panarin	701	537	-164
Nikita Kucherov	751	585	-166
Peter Stastny	977	789	-188
Craig Janney	760	563	-197
Mike Bossy	752	553	-199
Nathan MacKinnon	824	601	-223
Leon Draisaitl	750	527	-223
Phil Esposito	823	591	-232
Jean Ratelle	798	561	-237
Bernie Federko	1,000	761	-239
Bobby Clarke	1,068	821	-247
Adam Oates	1,337	1,079	-258
Paul Coffey	1,409	1,135	-274
Sidney Crosby	1,304	1,026	-278
Dale Hawerchuk	1,188	891	-297

 

[nturn06]

It looks like Adam Oates edges out McDavid by three assists:

View attachment 946230

Obviously McDavid's accomplishment is more impressive, since it was in a substantially lower scoring environment. But I think Oates is the only other player in NHL history to scored >1PPG over (a completely arbitrary) 672 games.

EDIT: it looks like Paul Coffey did this too:

View attachment 946234

Something tells me that in few years if we compare Oates best 672 games stretch to McD best 672 games stretch it will not be close

 

[benfranklin]

Something tells me that in few years if we compare Oates best 672 games stretch to McD best 672 games stretch it will not be close

This is all career ending for many of these guys so factors in regression, which we haven't seen from active players on that list (sans Crosby).

If you want to cherry pick Oates closest comparison, it is 89-90 to 96-97. 655 A in 649 GP for a +6. Ironically better than McDavid's current totals. So unless McDavid improves somewhere over the next few years vs his peak, Oates has him as of typing this.

I think most of us will predict McDavid is still great at the end of his career (a 40-40 or 30-50 player), right? So his APG average will drop dramatically.

 

[WalterLundy]

Active Players McDavid Trails in Assists:

• 30 fewer assists than Ovechkin (771 less games played)

• 51 fewer assists than Giroux (539 less games played)

• 140 fewer assists than Malkin (504 less games played)

• 141 fewer assists than Kopitar (730 less games played)

• 144 fewer assists than Kane (582 less games played)

• 349 fewer assists than Crosby (631 less games played)

If McDavid plays another 673 games (his current career total), his production could decline by 30% starting now and he would still reach 1,150 assists—currently 6th all-time. In that scenario, players ranked #2–5 would still have played 250–400 more games than him.

What’s more likely is that McDavid will trail only Gretzky by the time he hangs them up.

I agree. If you base his aging curve on Crosby’s after projecting his current 24-25 season out using his stats from the last 4 seasons he would end up with 2052 points and 1354 assists in roughly 1448 games. That’s by taking Crosby’s first 10 seasons and comparing them to his last 10 for 84% as a model. Even if he ages far worse than this by taking another 10% off (highly unlikely) he would still end up with 2000 or more points and 1300 or more assists if he plays two more seasons after that for 22 total (what Crosby is expected to play).

 

[glenngineer]

Gretzky is truly insane.

It's too bad hockey isn't appreciated much outside of your typical hockey countries (which is not that many)...Gretzky would have been a global superstar.

I did some research a few months back and this still blows me away.

When Gretzky had 11 back-to-back seasons of 100 or more assists, if you add all those assists and nothing else, he outscored everyone in NHL history except for something like 33 or 34 players. I know his assist total outscored everyone too and I'll be honest, I'm not sure which one is more phenomenal to me.

 

[Crow]

Honestly one of the better threads ive seen in a while about McDavid without cherry picking or throwing shade at someone else.

Looks like others to do it/close (within 300 lol) were:

Player	GP	A	Difference
Wayne Gretzky	1,487	1,963	476
Mario Lemieux	915	1,033	118
Connor McDavid	673	677	4
Peter Forsberg	708	636	-72
Artemi Panarin	701	537	-164
Nikita Kucherov	751	585	-166
Peter Stastny	977	789	-188
Craig Janney	760	563	-197
Mike Bossy	752	553	-199
Nathan MacKinnon	824	601	-223
Leon Draisaitl	750	527	-223
Phil Esposito	823	591	-232
Jean Ratelle	798	561	-237
Bernie Federko	1,000	761	-239
Bobby Clarke	1,068	821	-247
Adam Oates	1,337	1,079	-258
Paul Coffey	1,409	1,135	-274
Sidney Crosby	1,304	1,026	-278
Dale Hawerchuk	1,188	891	-297

Why didn’t Bobby Orr make your cut?

 

[nturn06]

This is all career ending for many of these guys so factors in regression, which we haven't seen from active players on that list (sans Crosby).

If you want to cherry pick Oates closest comparison, it is 89-90 to 96-97. 655 A in 649 GP for a +6. Ironically better than McDavid's current totals. So unless McDavid improves somewhere over the next few years vs his peak, Oates has him as of typing this.

I think most of us will predict McDavid is still great at the end of his career (a 40-40 or 30-50 player), right? So his APG average will drop dramatically.

McDavid was -40 in his first three seasons (2 and half due to injury): 169 A in 209 G.

If he goes around assist per game the next 2-3 seasons, which is in his prime, he will be close to +45 or +50, which is what I meant. And keep in mind that going back to 2020-21 season, he has 370 A in 322G, so he may go a bit over Assist per game.

 

[Video Nasty]

This is all career ending for many of these guys so factors in regression, which we haven't seen from active players on that list (sans Crosby).

If you want to cherry pick Oates closest comparison, it is 89-90 to 96-97. 655 A in 649 GP for a +6. Ironically better than McDavid's current totals. So unless McDavid improves somewhere over the next few years vs his peak, Oates has him as of typing this.

I think most of us will predict McDavid is still great at the end of his career (a 40-40 or 30-50 player), right? So his APG average will drop dramatically.

Couple of issues here.

If we cherry pick McDavid’s best 649 game stretch, it would start from after the first 24 games of his career in 2015-2016 through present day 2024-2025—he has 660 assists during that time. You mentioned Oates being +6 during his 649 game stretch. McDavid is +157 over his past 649 games. If he keeps doing what’s he’s been doing for the bulk of his career, he’s basically going to have brand new cherry picked that are only better.

McDavid also has 130 assists over his past 104 regular season games (76 games last season, 28 games so far this season). That 1.25 APG is 30% higher than the 0.96 APG career total that he was rocking through 2022-2023.

McDavid can dramatically decline 40%, starting with his next game and play another 700 games, and still exit his career with 1100 assists, and averaging 0.80 APG, which would still be firmly inside the top 10 all-time, where half the list is filled with guys who played less than 1000 games.

Like his overall PPG, he is in the process of building a buffer that will keep all his per average totals among the five highest of all-time, and that is factoring in an extreme drop off that would unrealistically set in while he is in midst of a 100+ game stretch where he’s averaging over 100 assists/82 games.

Lesser talents like Crosby have conditioned too many of you into thinking that an all-time great loses a step much too early. Keep dreaming that McDavid is going to dramatically decline any sooner than his next 300 games.

 

[gretzkyoilers]

Why didn’t Bobby Orr make your cut?

You'll need to look at assists per game:

List of NHL statistical leaders - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This is not updated with 2024-2025 season stats where McDavid cross the one APG mark, which Orr is just under one APG.

The only players with one assist per game or more are Wayne, Mario, and Connor....

 

[Crow]

You'll need to look at assists per game:

List of NHL statistical leaders - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This is not updated with 2024-2025 season stats where McDavid cross the one APG mark, which Orr is just under one APG.

The only players with one assist per game or more are Wayne, Mario, and Connor....

Im confused by your reply. There are 16 people on that list below Orr’s APG aren’t there? He should be 4th on that list. I must be missing something here.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Im confused by your reply. There are 16 people on that list below Orr’s APG aren’t there? He should be 4th on that list. I must be missing something here.

I think the OP is limiting it to players who appeared in at least 672 games, so that excludes Orr (he retired after 657).

 

[benfranklin]

Why didn’t Bobby Orr make your cut?

Good call. I must not have went back to the 60s when I pulled the numbers. He obviously is right there at -8.

 

[TheTotalPackage]

In today's day and age of hockey, I find it truly remarkable that he is averaging a PPG for his career off of assists alone. This deep into his career now, a month before his 28th birthday.

 

[benfranklin]

McDavid was -40 in his first three seasons (2 and half due to injury): 169 A in 209 G.

If he goes around assist per game the next 2-3 seasons, which is in his prime, he will be close to +45 or +50, which is what I meant. And keep in mind that going back to 2020-21 season, he has 370 A in 322G, so he may go a bit over Assist per game.

Im with you. Obviously going to go down as a top 5-10 playmaker of all time. Was just funny picking out Oates best 650-700 game stretch and having it be just a hair better than McDavids current run, which like you said, he may only improve on.