At the NHL All-Star break, McDavid was tied for 10th in the scoring race with 54 points (15 goals, 39 assists), 10 points back of Kucherov.
In his past 19 games, McDavid has 30 points (18 goals, 12 assists) and his two-goal game against the Wild was his 22nd multiple-point game this season.
"He's the captain, he's got all the talent in the world and I think he's a little bit sour and a little bit bitter with how the year has gone," Oilers coach Todd McLellan said. "He's not going to go away whimpering and when your leader does that, it forces everybody else to play their game.
"Connor has been doing and I noticed even in practice, we don't practice that long at this time of year, but when it's time to go, he is very aggressive in practice. He is working on his game and everybody else seems to follow, so we're lucky to have him."
The Oilers (30-34-4, 64 points) are 16 points behind the Colorado Avalanche for the second wild card into the playoffs from the Western Conference but McDavid eyes other purposes for their final 14 games.
"I'm just looking to finish out the season strong with the team and individually as well," he said, asked if he's thinking about the scoring race. "This is a growing period for our group to feel good about ourselves going into the summer and coming into next year."
In wake of all their frustration this season, the Oilers have been focusing on small steps to create positivity heading into the offseason and then the 2018-19 season.
Some of that involves experimentation. Against the Wild, McLellan decided it was time to see what center Ryan Nugent-Hopkins looked like as McDavid's left wing. Pontus Aberg, traded to the Oliers by the Nashville Predators for center Mark Letestu on Feb. 25, played right wing with McDavid and Nugent-Hopkins on Saturday.
"It's something that we want to try, whether there's people or media people screaming for it, it's something that we want to try and we want to experiment with," McLellan said. "We used him (Nugent-Hopkins) there at the World Cup and he was effective, but we're also trying to get Leon (Draisaitl, who often plays on McDavid's line) skating, I didn't think he skated well in the game before, but he was much better tonight. He has a tendency to skate better in that center-ice position."
McDavid gave the Saturday experiment a thumbs-up. Nugent-Hopkins scored an empty-net goal and had an assist.