McDavid needed nine games to do what Gretzky needed ten for

Look, the Minnesota Wild took a too-many-men penalty in overtime against Connor McDavid. That's not a penalty, that's a gift receipt with the tags still on it.

McDavid had three assists in Edmonton's 4-3 overtime win Tuesday, and that made 20 assists in nine games. Nobody in NHL history has gotten there faster, and the previous record belonged to Gretzky, Lemieux and Pat LaFontaine, who each needed 10. McDavid needed nine, and he made it look like a regular Tuesday night in October. It was a Tuesday.

The number: 26. By our count, that's McDavid's point total through nine games, with a point in every one of them, per NHL data.

The next guys in the league are at 18. Second place is his own defenseman, Evan Bouchard. That's not a scoring race, that's a group project where one guy did all the work and Bouchard put his name on the slide.

He's doing it while averaging 23:38 of ice time a night, too. Small sample, sure, nine games and change, but I'm still writing it down in pen.

How it went down. McDavid set up both of Leon Draisaitl's power-play goals, including the one that tied it with three seconds left in the first. Minnesota came back from 3-1 in the third period, and then the Wild bench put six guys on the ice in overtime, so McDavid fed Bouchard for the power-play winner.

Minnesota goalie Jesper Wallstedt called it "self-inflicted wounds." I'd call it basic arithmetic. Grade for the Wild bench: F. Buddy, I'm begging you, count to five before you open the gate, because six is too many and six was always too many.

The pace. Projected over an 84-game season, the math says 243 points. Only Gretzky has ever hit 200, and he did it four times. Lemieux got to 199 in 76 games in 1988-89 and has had 37 years to think about that one point.

Will McDavid actually get to 243? No. October paces are like Bruins leads in the third period: lovely to look at, but don't get attached.

His career high is 153, and this season has two extra games to beat it. That one I'd bet on, not with money but with my dignity, which is cheaper.

The other number. That was McDavid's 66th career three-assist game, sixth all-time. Sidney Crosby is fifth with 67. One more and they're tied, and somewhere in Pittsburgh a guy is already nervous.

Bruins tax: in Boston, a guy with 20 assists in nine games gets asked on the radio why he doesn't shoot more.

What's next. The Oilers are 7-1-1 and have won seven of eight. They host the defending champion Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is expected to make his season debut. So the best player alive gets another skilled forward for company. Carolina's penalty kill has two days to come up with a plan, and I'd start with candles.

Grade for McDavid: A-plus. He's 29, he's lapping the entire league, and Gretzky's name keeps showing up in his box scores; the only thing stopping him is a schedule with 75 games left on it.

I said what I said.