Connor McDavid and his Edmonton Oilers both white hot as Pacific Division showdowns loom

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Not saying it was a long time ago, but when Edmonton Oilers last won a regular season division title, they were driven by a generational player a couple of months past his 26th birthday. The phenom was in the process of shredding the NHL, leading the league in goals, assists and points by wide margins. He proudly wore the captain’s C on his heart next to the Oil drop, and an odd number in the high 90’s on his back.

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Sound familiar? That was, of course, the great Wayne Gretzky at the peak of his incredible powers. He would win his seventh straight Art Ross Trophy that season by an amazing though not quite unprecedented 75 points over linemate Jari Kurri, and go on to cop his eighth Hart Trophy. For their part, the high-scoring Oilers would not only lead the Smythe Division for a sixth straight season, they would win the “double” of the Presidents’ Trophy and the Stanley Cup, their third.

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Two more Cups would follow, but no more divisional wins. Indeed, Gretzky himself would depart the City of Champions just one year later.

The Oil came close as recently as 2017, when they landed just 2 points behind the Anaheim Ducks for first in the Pacific. That narrow defeat would haunt them a month later, when the two squads ultimately played Game 7 of their second round playoff series on the Pond. The Ducks rode home-ice advantage to a narrow 2-1 win.

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For that reason alone, finishing first is a worthwhile objective in 2023, as the current generational player shreds the NHL in a manner reminscent to the Great Gretzky, if not to quite such domineering extent. Connor McDavid has developed a hearty lead in the scoring race not seen since the days of #99, leading teammate Leon Draisaitl by 28 points and all other NHLers by at least 36. McDavid has surely already scored more than enough points to clinch his fifth scoring title and third in a row. He’s also the heavy favourite to win his third Hart Trophy.

As the season winds down, McDavid stands on the precipice of accumulating the largest margin of victory of any non-Gretzky in the history of the Art Ross. Here’s a full list of the 16 times a player has won by 20 or more points, with McDavid poised to become #17.

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Just seven different players on the list, led by Gretzky who did so eight times, seven of those with the Oilers (blue background). The top six of those came in consecutive years, with the Great One posting a margin of victory between 65 and 79 points in each of those astonishing seasons.

Nobody else has ever posted a margin half as big as the least of those, with Gretzky himself (natch) coming the closest with his 32-point win in L.A. in 1991. That along with Mario Lemieux’s 31-point bulge in 1989 might be within McDavid’s reach as the current season winds down. The big six, on the other hand, may well remain unchallenged until the end of time.

#97 is on the verge of joining this exclusive list of dominant scorers a second time, which will give our late-arriving NHL city a clear majority of 20+ point scoring champions with 9 of the 17. Remarkable when one stops to think about it.

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Besides Gretzky and his eight, he’ll join just Gordie Howe and Phil Esposito with two such wins, while surpassing the likes of Bobby Orr, Mario Lemieux, and Jaromir Jagr, who each did it “just” the once.  It’s a breathtaking list of the league’s greatest scoring champions.

On Wednesday night, the modern phenom drew another direct-line connection, becoming the first Oiler since Gretzky in 1986-87 to score 60 goals in a single season. He hit the milestone in spectacular style on a “do-over breakaway” in overtime to seal Edmonton’s 4-3 win over Arizona Coyotes.

That was Edmonton’s fifth consecutive victory, and the eighth in 10 games since the trade deadline that marked the start of the stretch run and a turning point in their season. That hot run all but clinched a playoff berth for the Oilers, allowing the locals to turn their focus over the final 10 to playoff positioning and perhaps that elusive division crown.

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Trouble is, while they’ve finally moved past Seattle Kraken into third place in the Pacific, they’ve made no headway on division leaders Vegas Golden Knights and Los Angeles Kings. All three division powers, the hot Oil included, are cooking with gas.

NHL standings by Pts% since trade deadline

During the three-week period Mar 03-23, four teams in the NHL have been running at .800 or better, and hey lookit! ALL FOUR are in the Pacific Division, including Edmonton and their two major rivals. Beneath them but well inside the top half of the standings, a cluster of Central Division contenders fighting their own battles. And beneath that, the tatters of this year’s conventional wisdom that the Eastern Conference is by far the more powerful.

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Sort the standings by each team’s last 10 games rather than the calendar date, and the results barely change. The Western Conference is again led by LAK, VEG, EDM and VAN, each with 8 wins. But note how every western team from first place Vegas through 13th-place Arizona has won at least 5 of their last 10 games and lost no more than 4 in regulation.

Among them, these 13 clubs are a combined 82-30-18 over their last 10, an astonishing .700 points percentage! With a combined 7-17-6, bottom feeders Anaheim, Chicago and San Jose pull the conference average down to a still-glittering .631 on 89-47-24.

By way of contrast, over their collective “last 10”, Eastern Conference clubs are a combined 74-68-18 = .519. (Note: these combined numbers won’t “add up” in the traditional sense, as teams will have played their last 10 games over a range of time periods, and one team’s 10th most recent game might be its opponent’s 11th.)

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Also worth noting the league as a whole is pulling a Points % of .575 over that span, which equates to fully 30% of games requiring extra time to sort out, creating a third point in the process. That propensity for more unresolved games down the stretch has proven true in past seasons as teams hang on grimly to milk the system for a point at a time; in the current campaign it has raised the average points percentage from .553 all the way up to .558 in recent weeks.

All of which has made it hard for the Edmonton Oilers in particular to catch up. It could be worse: the Kraken for instance have recorded a fairly normal 5-4-1, .550 in their last 10 and they’ve lost 5-7 points to each of the Kings, Golden Knights, and Oilers!

That torrid pace seems certain to change over the last 10, which sees a large number of division showdowns. The Oilers will play home-and-away against all of Vegas, Los Angeles, as well Anaheim and San Jose, with single games at Arizona and at Colorado. The Kings and Knights meet up once, and combine to play the Kraken three times.

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The Oilers are not quite in charge of their own destiny, but can go a long way toward that end by winning their head to head games in the final 10. That starts Saturday night when they face the Vegans in Edmonton, followed by a tough road trip to Arizona, Vegas, and Los Angeles next Mon-Tue-Thu that will go a long way toward determining final placements.

From this distance it’s the Kings who appear the greater threat. They’ve outscored opponents 41-21 over their last 10, with shots and expected goals shares both in the 60% range. The Golden Knights on the other hand are below 45% in both categories, but riding shooting and save percentages to an outstanding and likely unsustainable 1057 over that span and a 39-28 goal share. Like the Oilers, however, they have been great at grabbing and holding the lead, driving score effects — or as I sometimes prefer to think of them, shot effects — which can have the effect of making the efficient team look worse by underlying numbers than it actually is.

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For that division title dream to remain alive, the Oilers need positive results in those games, starting Saturday on the late game of Hockey Night in Canada. We’ll have more on lines, pairings and Game Day background during the day on Saturday.

Recently at the Cult of Hockey

STAPLES: Oilers an early winner in trade deadline results

LEAVINS: Player grades in OT thriller over Coyotes

McCURDY: Edmonton Oilers ice the Sharks in Overtime

STAPLES: Oilers make a big college free agent signing

LEAVINS: Unlocking Kailer Yamamoto — 9 Things

McCURDY: Oilers set sights higher — Games 61-70 segment review

Follow me on Twitter @BruceMcCurdy

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