Nathan MacKinnon<\/a>, who has 78 points (36 goals, 42 assists) in 44 games.<\/p>\n\u201cHe\u2019s very motivated to be the best player,\u201d Knoblauch said. \u201cI never see Connor show up to the rink and say, \u2018Maybe tonight\u2019s going to be the night I\u2019m going to play well.\u2019 He\u2019s very dedicated to his game and he wants to be the best, and he\u2019s very focused. He\u2019s putting in the preparation with his linemates what their strategy is against the other team.\u201d<\/p>\n
McDavid had three 17-game point streaks since joining the Oilers for the 2015-16 season heading into Saturday. His first was in 2021-21 (32 points; 12 goals, 20 assists), and he did it again in 2022-2023 (37 points; 16 goals, 21 assists).<\/p>\n
Since the streak began on Dec. 4, Edmonton\u2019s power play has been tops in the League, converting at 39.7 success rate. The Oilers visit the Chicago Blackhawks on Monday (8:30 p.m. ET; CHSN, SNW).<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s an extremely talented hockey player, very focused and very consistent,\u201d Knoblauch said.\u201d And another thing with that streak — the power play is going really well. When the power play is going really well he\u2019s a big part of it, and that also helps too.\u201d<\/p>\n
McDavid has led Edmonton to the Stanley Cup Final the past two seasons, losing to the Florida Panthers each time. The Oilers (22-16-7) struggled to gain traction at the start of the season but now trail the Vegas Golden Knights (20-11-2) by one point for first place in the Pacific Division.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a once-in-a-lifetime player, and we\u2019re obviously happy to have him on our side and happy to see the levels that he is able to get to,\u201d Edmonton forward Kasperi Kapanen said. \u201cIt\u2019s really remarkable to see it.\u201d<\/p>\n
His talent is undeniable, but McDavid also takes pride in a strong work ethic and is constantly striving to improve. That too does not go unnoticed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also do see that side, that he does put the effort off the ice, especially in practice and he leads this group in that way,\u201d Kapanen said. \u201cSo, it\u2019s no surprise that he\u2019s the best in the world right now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Consistency has been the key to McDavid\u2019s success this season; he\u2019s been held off the score sheet only…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":509287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[293,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-509286","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115878431679879279","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}