Connor McDavid has done it again.
For the 10th straight season, TSN has placed the Edmonton Oilers star at No. 1 in its Top 50 Player Rankings, a run that keeps stretching the standard he’s already set. Gino Reta went even bigger in his praise, calling McDavid the most highly evolved player of all time, and the conversation around him keeps drifting toward something even larger: history.
That kind of spotlight only gets brighter when the questions start piling up, and McDavid is heading into the 2026-27 season with plenty of them. He’s leading the Oilers into a year where the noise around the team feels louder than usual.
How will he and Leon Draisaitl mesh with new head coach Mike Babcock? Will McDavid sign an extension before his two-year deal runs out in 2028?
And if he does eventually leave Edmonton, where would he go?
The rumour that McDavid could depart Edmonton has followed him for years, and it isn’t going anywhere. If the Oilers don’t make a deep run in the 2027 Playoffs, that uncertainty only grows.
There’s also the matter of how quickly Edmonton comes out of the gate. McDavid is entering his 12th season in Alberta, and he’ll already be on to his sixth head coach and 16th starting goaltender. The franchise still hasn’t found the missing piece that gets him to his first Stanley Cup, and now the team has to see whether Babcock can be the one to steady things - or whether everything gets blown up by the pressure.
The first ten games should tell a lot. The Oilers have built a reputation for slow starts during the McDavid years, and another sluggish October would only feed the speculation around the team and its biggest star.
Even with all that hanging over the season, McDavid looks primed for another monster year. He finally got a real offseason break after playing the most pressure-packed games of anyone in the NHL over the last three seasons. From 2023 to 2026, he reached two Stanley Cup Finals, helped Canada win the 4 Nations Face-Off title and added a silver medal in the Olympic Winter Games.
By the end of last season, it was obvious McDavid and the Oilers were running on fumes. That made the first-round loss to the Anaheim Ducks sting, but it may also have given Edmonton an unexpected reset heading into 2026-27.
TSN’s latest rankings also featured a few major shifts near the top. San Jose Sharks forward Macklin Celebrini made the biggest leap in the 2026 poll, rocketing from 38th last season to third behind McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon of the Colorado Avalanche. Tampa Lightning forward and current Hart Trophy winner Nikita Kucherov checked in fourth, while Avalanche defenceman Cale Makar landed fifth.
Draisaitl dropped out of the top five and came in sixth. Sidney Crosby, long the player most often viewed as the league’s best before McDavid took over that conversation, fell to 17th, down four spots from last season. The top goalie on the list was Tampa Bay Lightning veteran Andrei Vasilevskiy, who landed 20th overall.
As for the future of McDavid’s No. 1 spot, Celebrini looks like the clearest challenger. New York Islanders defenceman Matthew Schaefer is another name to watch after his sensational Calder Trophy-winning season in 2025-26. Still, McDavid hasn’t shown any sign of easing up, and for now, he looks set to keep that top ranking for at least the next two or three seasons.
In Other News...
Oilers Linked To Kirby Dach As Bigger Roster Questions Loom
With rosters still being shuffled and clubs keeping one eye on the future, the Canadiens Kirby Dach has become a name worth watching around the league. Reported interest from the Oilers and Flames adds another layer to a player whose situation in Montreal has already sparked plenty of conversation, especially with teams constantly weighing talent, fit and how a contract might age under a changing cap picture.
The larger backdrop matters here, too, because the NHLs salary structure is headed upward as league revenues keep climbing. For Edmonton, that means every decision on a young forward carries more than immediate lineup implications, and any pursuit of Dach sits alongside broader questions about how the club wants to allocate its money as the roster evolves. Exactly how serious that interest is remains part of the intrigue. [Read more 🡒]
Bruins Are Suddenly In A Crowded Race For A Scorer
The market for scoring help is getting crowded fast, and the Oilers are right in the middle of it. Edmonton has been linked to Montreal Canadiens forward Kirby Dach, while Kirill Marchenko is also drawing attention from several clubs, including Edmonton, Toronto and Boston, as teams keep looking for a forward who can tilt a lineup a little more. With no trades announced yet, the interest around the league is starting to feel like a race before anyone has even hit the finish line.
There is plenty else moving in the background, too, with Dylan Larkin broadening his trade request list and the Canadiens reportedly eyeing Winnipeg center Mark Scheifele for their own depth needs. For Edmonton, the challenge is the same one a lot of contenders face this time of year: identifying the right scorer, then finding a way to separate from a packed field of bidders before the market thins out. [Read more 🡒]
Oilers Keep Circling Kirby Dach And This Rumor May Not Fade
Kirby Dachs name keeps coming up around the Oilers, and the timing makes sense with Edmonton always looking for ways to add more size and skill down the middle. The Montreal Canadiens forward is under contract through the 2026-27 season, but his long-term fit in Montreal has been a talking point for a while, especially as he works to re-establish himself after an injury-riddled stretch and push for a steady role in the lineup.
NHL insider Frank Seravalli reported that both Edmonton and Calgary have shown real interest in Dach, with the Oilers viewed as especially aggressive in their pursuit. For Edmonton, the appeal is obvious: a player still young enough to fit a core timeline, with enough upside to make the chase worth monitoring whether it happens before the season, at the trade deadline, or later if circumstances change. [Read more 🡒]