April 21, 2026 by Eric Friesen

Connor McDavid has left no doubt he’s still the world’s best hockey player.

The Edmonton Oilers superstar amassed 138 points in 82 games in 2025-26 to capture his sixth Art Ross Trophy as scoring champion. McDavid joined Wayne Gretzky, Gordie Howe and Mario Lemieux as the only players in NHL history to win six Art Ross Trophies.

With the scoring title already secured prior to the regular season finale, McDavid capped off another season for the ages with four assists, including his league-leading 90th of the campaign, in a 6-1 victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday. McDavid also joined Gretzky, Lemieux, Bobby Orr, Adam Oates and Joe Thornton as the only players in NHL history to record multiple 90-assist seasons.

Never one keen to talk about personal accolades, McDavid was clearly driven to reclaim the Art Ross Trophy after finishing third and sixth in the scoring race the past two seasons, respectively. The Oilers captain won his first two Art Ross Trophies in 2017 and 2018, before taking home three straight in 2021, 2022 and 2023 – the only player player in the 21st Century to accomplish the feat.

McDavid finished eight points ahead of runner-up Nikita Kucherov this year, who had won the previous two Art Ross Trophies.

McDavid’s return to the mountain top

Following an injury-shortened 2024-25 campaign, where McDavid had 100 points in just 67 games, he came into this season looking to get back to the out-of-this-world offensive totals the hockey world has come to expect from him. He put up 36 points in his first 27 games, good for a 109-point pace.

For most star players in the league, that would represent a career year. For a healthy McDavid, however, it would be viewed as a major disappointment.

Then, the momentum of McDavid’s season changed following a 1-0 loss to the Minnesota Wild on December 2. At the end of the night’s action, McDavid trailed Nathan MacKinnon by 10 points in the scoring race. When they went into the Christmas break three weeks later, McDavid held a six-point advantage on MacKinnon.

McDavid, who played arguably the best hockey of his career this past December, rocketed up the leaderboard with an outstanding 13 goals 34 points in 15 games (2.27 points per game). It was the most points by a player in one month since Lemieux also had 34 points in December 1995.

After putting on one of the greatest international performances in hockey history at the 2026 Winter Olympics, McDavid returned to the Oilers in late February, where he notched 14 goals and 42 points in his final 24 games to secure the Art Ross Trophy. What makes this even more impressive is that McDavid was without his most common linemate over the past five seasons, Zach Hyman, for 24 games, and his No. 1 finisher on the power-play, Leon Draisaitl, for the final 14 contests of the regular season.