'No reason why' McDavid can't reach 200 points for Oilers, Kurri says

HELSINKI --  Five-time Stanley Cup winners Jari Kurri and Esa Tikkanen each had an up-close view when Wayne Gretzky set an NHL record with 215 points for the Edmonton Oilers in 1985-86.

They’re watching from afar in Finland this season as Oilers center Connor McDavid is on pace for the first 200-point season in the NHL since then. Each believes he has a good shot to do it.

“There’s no reason why not. I can’t think of one,” Kurri said after Tikkanen received the Borje Salming Courage Award at Helsinki City Hall on Friday. “He might slow down here and there, but he might come back again. It’s a long season and it’s a lot of games, a lot of travel, but hopefully he stays healthy.

“And, sure, if he stays healthy and keeps playing like that, I’m sure he will.”

Tikkanen moved to tears after receiving Borje Salming Courage Award

McDavid has 49 points (11 goals, 38 assists) in 20 games this season heading into Edmonton’s game at the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; SNO, SNW, SNP, NHLN), putting him on pace to finish the 84-game regular season with 206 points. That would edge Gretzky’s 1983-84 total of 205 points for the fourth most in NHL history.

Gretzky is the only player to reach 200 points, doing it four times in a five-season span with the Oilers. He had 212 points (NHL-record 92 goals, 120 assists) in 80 games in 1981-82, 205 points (87 goals, 118 assists) in 74 games in 1983-84, 208 points (73 goals, 135 assists) in 80 games in 1984-85 and 215 points (52 goals, NHL-record 163 assists) in 1985-86.

Tikkanen, who joined the Oilers during the 1985 playoffs, was a 21-year-old rookie when Gretzky set the single-season points record in 1985-86. McDavid has already fallen off the pace to surpass that mark and Tikkanen said he believes it will be difficult for McDavid to maintain his current pace, but thinks he can get to 200.

“When the games come later in the season, they’ll be tougher and it’s going to be harder and harder all the time,” Tikkanen said. “I think he has a good chance, but there are still 60 games left. So there’s a long way to go, but if he’s healthy, he can do it.”

Regardless, Tikkanen and Kurri are amazed by how McDavid has driven the Oilers to a 14-3-3 start this season. The Edmonton captain led the NHL in points six times in his previous 11 NHL seasons, including when he had 138 points (48 goals, 90 assists) in 82 games last season. His NHL career-high is 153 points (64 goals, 89 assists) in 82 games in 2022-23.

A three-time winner of the Hart Trophy, voted as the NHL’s most valuable player in 2017, 2021 and 2023, McDavid has somehow elevated his play to another level this season, with points in each of Edmonton’s first 20 games.

He is the fourth different player in NHL history to earn at least a point in each of the first 20 games of a season, joining Gretzky (three times, including a record 51-game point streak to open the 1983-84 season), Mats Sundin (30 games in 1992-93) and Dany Heatley (22 games in 2005-06). 

“Right now, Connor McDavid is one of the greatest players in the National Hockey League,” Tikkanen said. “If had played in our time, I don’t know because we had it little bit rougher, but right now, he’s one of the greatest skaters and he’s doing whatever he wants out there. He has great help with (forward Leon) Draisaitl, who is playing great. They’re two of the top players in the NHL right now. 

“So I hope he’s going to win the Stanley Cup one day. That’s what he wants, nothing else.”

McDavid came close to winning the Cup when Edmonton lost to the Florida Panthers in seven games in the 2024 Stanley Cup Final and lost to Florida again in six games in the 2025 Cup Final. 

Kurri, a 2001 Hockey Hall of Fame inductee who ranks 22nd in NHL history with 601 goals and 25th in points with 1,398, said he believes McDavid is a man on a mission this season after the Oilers lost to the Anaheim Ducks in the first round of the playoffs last season.

“I think he’s so motivated right now,” Kurri said. “He so much wants to win and he does it night after night. He lost twice in the Final and I know when you lose in the Final how much it hurts. But he bounced back and he wants that. He was so close and it drives him so much.”