Heading into the 2023-2024 season finale, the NHL’s top-3 scorers remain as follows: Nikita Kucherov (122 points), Nathan MacKinnon (122 points) and Connor McDavid (119 points). With such a tight battle, the captain of the Edmonton Oilers should win this award for the league’s top scorer.
NHL Scoring Leaders/Games Left
122 Kucherov/11 games left
122 MacKinnon/10 games left
119 McDavid/12 games left 👀Art Ross Trophies:
McDavid 5
Kucherov 1
MacKinnon 0— BucciOT.Com (@Buccigross) March 27, 2024
McDavid has five Art Ross trophies in his pocket, and has made a habit of crushing everyone else in terms of regular-season points.
He has the strength of character to repeat this feat year after year, and this one should be no exception. With 12 games to play, compared with 11 and 10 for Kucherov and MacKinnon, he should be able to get them out of the way with ease.
His mission began on Tuesday night, when he collected a total of two assists, including this one, which certainly tops the list of the day’s highlights:
Nuge breaks his slump with the backdoor feed from McDavid 🚪 pic.twitter.com/YmY5TTVzQu
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) March 27, 2024
With those two assists, he has 93 assists this season. The only player with as many assists in a season in the last 30 years is Joe Thornton, with 96 in the 2005-06 campaign. The only players in history to have reached the 100 mark are Wayne Gretzky, Bobby Orr and Mario Lemieux.
That said, with McDavid’s insane pace and no fewer than 20 points in his last ten games, it’s hard not to believe that he’ll crush MacKinnon and Kucherov in the process to take over the NHL’s top scoring spot.
Nathan and Nikita need to keep an eye on the No. 97 bomb to make sure it doesn’t go off!