2023 belongs to NHL sorcerer Connor McDavid – 2024 and 2025 probably will too

The 26-year-old Oilers star would be a Hall of Famer if he retired tomorrow. All that's missing from his career is serious hardware

At the age of six, Connor McDavid was already special - not just talented, but driven and determined. His parents tried to get him into a competitive league for kids a year older, but he was denied. So they found a solution. They put him in a house league - with nine-year-olds. McDavid played up. He did it again when he joined the Ontario Hockey League at 15, and when he joined Team Canada's World Juniors team at 16. After that, of course, was the NHL.

Which is, technically speaking, as high as he can go. The thing is, McDavid is still ready to play up - he just can't. So, instead, he puts up seasons like this one, which include months like March. On the 14th, McDavid hit 129 points on the season, the highest single-season point total among all active NHL players. On the same day, the next highest points-earner on the year (as it has been all season) was McDavid's teammate, Leon Draisaitl, with 100 - 29 points behind. If you only took McDavid's assists into consideration, he'd still rank in the Top 20 overall points leaders on the year. On 22 March, McDavid notched his 60th goal of the season in just 72 games (Auston Matthews hit 60 in 73 games last season).