The Edmonton Oilers have spent October looking every bit like a team that can absorb damage and keep rolling. Even with a long list of injuries - Mattias Janmark, Frederik Andersen, and Matt Savoie out all season, plus Jason Dickinson, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Zach Hyman, and Devon Levi missing major time this month - Edmonton still sits atop the Pacific Division at 10-2-2. The latest blow came when Isaac Howard was lost in the last game, yet the wins have kept coming.
A big reason is that the stars have been doing star things, and then some. Edmonton has three of the league’s top six point producers, which tells you plenty about how this month has gone. Here are the Oilers’ three stars for October, including the lone September game.
Connor McDavid has been the engine behind everything, and his start has been nothing short of historic. He leads the NHL with 37 points, sitting 11 ahead of Leon Draisaitl, and has added eight goals while averaging 2.64 points per game. He has recorded a point in every game and already has 10 multipoint outings.
The numbers get even louder when you zoom in on the opening stretch. McDavid piled up 31 points in his first 10 games, making him just the fifth player in league history to reach 31 or more points in any 10-game span.
The others: Kent Nilsson, Mike Bossy, Mario Lemieux, and Wayne Gretzky. He also passed Gretzky’s Oilers franchise mark for points in the first 10 games, topping the old record of 30.
And then there’s the assist streak. McDavid set an NHL record with 13 straight season-opening games with an assist, breaking the previous mark of 12 held by Wayne Gretzky (1982-83), Ken Linseman (1985-86), and Sebastian Aho (2018-19).
That streak is now up to 14 games. He has 14 power-play points, 22 even-strength points, and even a shorthanded goal, a reminder that he’s impacting every part of the game.
At his current pace, he’s on track for 233 points.
Evan Bouchard has been nearly as eye-popping, even if he has to settle for second star this time. The defenseman has put up seven goals and 23 points in 14 games while averaging 25:52 per night.
Those are outrageous numbers for a blueliner, and they come with a league-leading plus-20 rating. He’s tied for fourth in points and tied for second in assists.
Bouchard set the tone immediately with a hat trick and a five-point night in his first game of the season. That was his second career hat trick, and it also made history: only the third by a defenseman on opening night, and the first in more than 45 years. He has six multipoint games and has been held off the scoresheet only twice.
The underlying numbers back up the production. At 5-on-5, Edmonton has controlled 56.90% of the shots, 62.87% of the scoring chances, 57.01% of the high-danger chances, and 78.79% of the goals with Bouchard on the ice. He’s making a strong case for real Norris Trophy attention.
Leon Draisaitl rounds out the list after a blistering month of his own. He has 12 goals and 26 points in 14 games, which puts him second in the league in both points and goals behind Kirill Kaprizov of the Minnesota Wild. Draisaitl has been dangerous in every situation, with six power-play goals and nine power-play points to go with 17 even-strength points.
He has already stacked up eight multipoint games, including one three-point outing, one four-point game, and one five-point performance. He has been held off the scoresheet only twice.
Draisaitl has also been strong at the faceoff dot, where he sits at 57.7 percent and is on pace for a career-best mark. He has won 113 of 196 draws.
In Other News...
Oilers Turn To Matt Tomkins In A Spot Fans Did Not Expect
The Oilers are turning to Matt Tomkins in a spot few would have circled on the calendar, with coach Mike Babcock saying the goaltender will make his Edmonton debut against the New York Rangers. Tomkins was brought up from AHL Bakersfield under emergency conditions after Devon Levi was placed on injured reserve, giving the organization an unexpected look at a depth option it had only recently added on a two-year, two-way deal.
Tomkins does bring prior NHL experience, but this is still a notable moment for a goalie who has spent much of his recent work in the minors and now gets thrown into a high-profile setting right away. For Edmonton, it is another reminder of how quickly the crease can change, and for Tomkins it is a chance to show he can handle a call that arrived far sooner than anyone around the team likely planned. [Read more 🡒]
Oilers Stay Perfect On The Road In Another McDavid-Led Statement Win
The Oilers kept rolling away from home with a 3-1 win over the Rangers, a result that pushed them to 11-2-2 on the season and kept their road mark spotless at 7-0. Connor McDavid set the tone early with a goal and stretched his point streak to 15 games, while Evan Bouchard and Colton Dach added the kind of secondary scoring that has helped Edmonton keep finding answers even when the game tightens up.
There was also a notable subplot in net, where Matt Tomkins made his first start for Edmonton and handled the moment well, turning aside 28 of 29 shots. For a team already carrying momentum through the opening stretch, getting that kind of stability from an unfamiliar name only deepens the sense that the Oilers are building something sturdy as the schedule starts to test them more often. [Read more 🡒]
McDavids October Run Has Oilers Fans Eyeing Hockey History
Connor McDavids October has already pushed his name into a familiar conversation in Edmonton, the kind reserved for the sports rarest scorers and playmakers. He piled up 27 assists in the month, setting the NHL mark for assists in October while also establishing new Oilers franchise records for points and assists over the same stretch, a start that has naturally invited comparisons to the biggest early-season bursts in league history.
The company he is keeping is the point here, because the list now includes names like Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux, with McDavids opening month landing among the most eye-catching runs the NHL has ever seen. For Oilers fans, the intrigue is not just what he has already done but how long this kind of pace can hold, and whether October will end up looking less like a hot streak and more like the beginning of something historic. [Read more 🡒]