Connor McDavid's start to the season has been downright miserable.
Sure, the points have been there — if you're a mere mortal NHL player — with two goals and eight assists in nine games.
McDavid's Edmonton Oilers, however, are one of the league's biggest stories a month into the campaign.
And not for a reason they're proud of.
Edmonton owns a disastrous 2-8-1 record, good for 31st overall, and looks a far cry from the Stanley Cup contender many believed the Oilers would be in 2023-24.
The goaltending has been porous, defensive structure lacking, and the top-heavy offence disjointed. The stunning stumble out of the gate has led to questions about the job security of head coach Jay Woodcroft, who won three playoff rounds over the last two seasons and owned a 76-32-12 record over his first 120 games in charge.
McDavid, who missed two contests with an upper-body injury and sat 73rd in the scoring race entering Wednesday, just hasn't looked like himself.
But all the struggles aside, the three-time Hart Trophy winner as the NHL's most valuable player and five-time Art Ross Trophy winner as its leading scorer — including an outrageous 64-goal, 153-point performance in 2022-23 — still sets the standard for his peers.
McDavid was already an elite playmaker heading into last season, but decided that he would focus more on shooting.
The result? His first Maurice (Rocket) Richard Trophy as the NHL's top goal-scorer.
"It's great," Nashville Predators winger Filip Forsberg said with a laugh before the season. "He was just like, 'Hey, I'm gonna score goals this year.' All right, sure.
"It's great for the game. You have to find ways to keep up."
While the top pick at the 2015 NHL draft has cut a frustrated figure through the first four weeks of the regular season, the bar McDavid sets year over year on an individual level pushes the rest of the league.
"Definitely motivating," Arizona Coyotes forward Clayton Keller said of the superstar centre. "To see what he's accomplished already at such young ages, it's insane. He's gonna get 1,000 (career) points probably soon.
"You can definitely see he always has that look in his eye that he's not satisfied."
Chicago Blackhawks centre Connor Bedard — the most-hyped prospect to enter the NHL since McDavid after going No. 1 overall in June — has watched the Edmonton captain's career from afar until this season.
"Unbelievable that he is getting better," said the 18-year-old. "You've got to have that self-motivation, but to see guys like that getting better and push themselves, push their teammates, it's pretty remarkable.
"It helps everyone."
Montreal Canadiens sniper Cole Caufield isn't sure how McDavid continues to improve.
"But it pushes us," he said. "This guy keeps getting better every year and we gotta to do the same thing.
"We're just trying to keep up."
Forsberg said that while a player like Bedard could approach McDavid's exploits down the road, he remains — despite the issues this season for both player and team — in a class by himself.
"He's always going to be a little bit off in his own division," Forsberg said. "But if he gets better, the rest of us have just got to try to keep that gap the same.
"And not let him get too far ahead."
SHARKS EXHALE
The only team with a worse start than the Oilers, who placed underperforming, big-money goaltender Jack Campbell on waivers this week, is their Thursday opponent — the San Jose Sharks.
San Jose beat the Philadelphia Flyers 2-1 on Tuesday for its first regular-season victory since April 1, but is still a shocking 1-10-1 through 12 games, good for a minuscule .125 points percentage.
To put that into perspective, the Washington Capitals (8-67-5) had a points percentage of .131 in their 1974-75 expansion season.
The salary cap instituted following the 2004-05 lockout has brought parity to the league, with the Detroit Red Wings (17-49-5) accumulating a bottom-of-the-barrel .275 points percentage in 2019-2020 before that season was shuttered by COVID-19.
The Sharks have been outscored 56-14 to open 2023-24 — Toronto Maple Leafs centre Auston Matthews had 13 goals in 12 games heading into Wednesday — including losses of 10-1 and 10-2 last week.
KNIGHTS OUT START
The Vegas Golden Knights are squarely at the other end of the spectrum.
Despite suffering their first defeat of the season over the weekend, the defending Stanley Cup champions sat 11-1-1 ahead of Wednesday's action.
The Boston Bruins, meanwhile, are right behind Vegas despite losing Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci to retirement.
Last season's Presidents' Trophy winner, a team that set records for wins and points, is 10-1-1 out of the gate.
JOHNSON REMEMBERED
Adam Johnson, who died after being cut in the neck by an opponent's skate blade last month in the Elite Ice Hockey League while playing for the Nottingham Panthers, was honoured at an English Premier League soccer match over the weekend.
Fans at the City Ground remembered the 29-year-old from Minnesota with a standing ovation in the 47th minute — to match his jersey number — during Saturday's game between Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa.
The Panthers announced this week they have sold close to 4,000 replica memorial jerseys with "AJ47" emblazoned on the front. The club said all proceeds will be added to a GoFundMe page established in Johnson's memory.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2023.
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Joshua Clipperton's NHL notebook is published every Wednesday.
Joshua Clipperton, The Canadian Press
