The evolution of Connor McDavi...

Connor McDavid has been a league superstar since his debut. Nobody comes close to his astounding 697 points in 497 games from his debut game in 2015 until the end of last season. His 1.43 points per game is much more than Nikita Kucherov's 1.25 in the same time span, and his points total is 74 more than Patrick Kane's 623, which ranks second.

McDavid has been head and shoulders above the pack in terms of output, having won the Art Ross Trophy four times in the last six seasons.

Goal scoring was the one area where he had been a "mere mortal." But what does this this imply for McDavid? He was fourth in raw goals since joining the league prior to this season, and two of the three players ahead of him, teammate Leon Draisaitl (third) and Alex Ovechkin (first), had played 34 and 27 more games, respectively. Second-placed Auston Matthews has played 80 fewer games than McDavid. Still, he's never won a Rocket Richard Trophy, and you know that's something McDavid wants to rectify. This season, he's changing that, as he scored his 60th goal of the season on Wednesday, marking yet another career milestone.

After averaging 0.49 goals per game in his previous seven seasons, McDavid is now averaging 0.83 goals per game this season. He has a ten-goal lead over second-place David Pastrnak and has all but wrapped up the Rocket.

Perhaps more importantly, he has a realistic possibility of scoring more than 65 goals in a single season, making him the first player in this millennium to do so. Ovechkin, probably the best scorer of all time, reached 65 points in 2007-08, while the only other players to reach 60 this century are Steven Stamkos (60 in 2012) and Matthews (60 in 2022).

So the issue is, how did McDavid reach a new level of goal scoring? Let's dissect it.

Scoring off the rush

In terms of raw numbers, the key things that would help increase his goal total are all up. He is shooting a career high 4.29 shots on net per game, surpassing his previous career high of 3.93 last season, which resulted in the second-highest goal total (44) of his career.

McDavid is clearly confident in his shot and while he’s always a threat due to his speed and ability to stickhandle while flying down the ice, now he’s not even beating defensemen before scoring. He’s just backing them off with his speed and shooting it right past them and the goalie. This is a good example:

Having watched and classified every goal McDavid has scored so far this season, I have counted six in the category of “5-on-5 shot off the rush,” plus another three that were the same type of goal but on the power play. Last season, by comparison, I counted three goals in this category across all situations.

Breakaway goals

Last season he scored eight “mini breakaway” goals where he was either all alone with the goalie in tight or beat a defenseman wide and drove to the net all alone, along with two actual breakaway goals. He has six breakaway goals and six "mini breakaway" goals so far this season.

McDavid is always going to be dangerous off the rush so long as he has his speed. Every defenseman in the league is worried about being turned inside out by him, and his victim list is significant. He is too fast to play tight off the rush, and if the defenseman gives McDavid that extra cushion to protect himself from getting turnstiled, he’s simply going to shoot it past you. The idea of containing him becomes even more difficult.

Power-play goals (shot)

He’s also hunting his shot more on the power play. McDavid’s 20 power-play goals is already significantly more than his previous career high of 11 that he put up in the 2019-2020 season.

Much like at 5-on-5, he’s simply blowing pucks past goalies by himself, except when on the power play he's doing it off the half-wall. McDavid is launching 19.14 shots on net per 60 minutes on the power play, which is way above his previous career high of 15.91 last season. For reference, he had never been over 15 prior to last season. Overall, he ranks 10th in the league among regular power-play players (over 200 minutes) in that category.

Power-play goals (backdoor one-timers)

The threat of his shot along with Draisaitl’s one-timer on the other side has penalty killers scrambling at all times, which has led to another type of goal: backdoor one-timers.

Poor Chicago here, trying to figure out who is going to shoot between Draisaitl and McDavid as they get toyed with until one of them finally decides to bury it.

5-on-5 in-zone goals

McDavid is seeing a big jump in what I call “5-on-5 in-zone goals,” where the Oilers are in a half-court-like offense. It could be a rebound, it could be a nice individual goal — he has had a few this year where he has danced in the offensive zone off sustained pressured then scored — or it could be a quick cut and shoot.

His edgework is amazing and as much as we talk about the speed, his ability to create space for himself in tight spots really stands out now. It’s not just about rush offense. A lot of fans probably remember this goal against Anaheim.