With only three goals in his first 14 games, Connor McDavid looked like he might be having one of those years where he focuses more on setting up his teammates than scoring himself. He has these seasons from time to time, and there's nothing wrong with them—in '23–'24 he tallied a round 100 assists and finished third in MVP voting—but as McDavid's finite prime rolls on, it'd be pleasant to see him decide to take over games, like he used to when he was scoring 40 (or 64).
Well. About that. Since scoring three in 14, McDavid has scored 20 goals in his last 23 games, and 12 in his last 10. He is metaphorically turning on the jets, often by (also metaphorically) turning on the jets.
McDavid opened the scoring with his first of two goals in Sunday's 4-3 Edmonton win over Vegas, and if you pause the video right at the zone entry, the Knights aren't set up too badly. But anyone would look flat-footed compared to McDavid's head of steam, and Jeremy Lauzon falls down (not metaphorically) trying to keep up with him.
If this goal looks oddly familiar, you might be thinking of McDavid's goal from Tuesday against Pittsburgh. In that clip, he's already at top speed by the time he leaves his own zone, takes a hand-off at center ice, and skates through and around three Penguins to punish his old pal Stuart Skinner.
If that goal looks familiar, maybe you are thinking of his goal against the Maple Leafs three days prior. An already-cruising McDavid accelerated almost cartoonishly, drawing gasps from the Toronto crowd and earning a downright silly amount of space to finish the play. He's basically the only player I know who can create his own breakaways by skating forward.
This is basically the quintessential Connor McDavid viewing experience—he doesn't even look like he's moving particularly fast, but rather that everyone else on the ice looks like they're in slow motion by comparison. It's like one of the Quicksilver scenes from the X-Men movies.
The player tracking backs up the eye test. His top speed this season is about 12 percent faster than the average forward. The average forward has topped 22 MPH twice so far this year; McDavid has done it 68 times. On opening night in October, he reached 24.6 MPH, still the fastest burst of anyone all season, and the second-fastest since they started tracking that data in 2021.
You want to know why he's the best skater on Earth? Velocity is a great place to start. It doesn't hurt that he's also wired to be able to handle the puck like he does at top speed. It's not enough to just put bodies in his way.
I caught an Oilers game live last season, and while McDavid didn't score, there were several moments when he kicked it into another gear to create a chance that didn't exist a split-second earlier, and the crowd oooooh'd in awe. Even with the best athletes, it's rare to have moments where they display their superiority this blatantly. McDavid, on the other hand, is good for at least a couple moments per game that demonstrate he is capable of things other players simply are not.
