Connor McDavid has begun this season with a flurry, amassing 26 points in nine games. It is the best start of his 12-year career. McDavid has six goals, 20 assists, plus-17, and is averaging a ridiculous  2.89 points per game. The Oilers, with McDavid’s leadership, have started the season off with a 7-1-1 record and will be hosting the defending Stanley Cup Champions tonight, the Carolina Hurricanes. 

The hobby recognizes McDavid as the best player in the NHL, and in terms of his cards, that is already priced into his value. But Connor McDavid is missing one thing from his resume; if you guessed the Stanley Cup, you guessed right. But what would a Stanley Cup do to his cards? 

McDavid has 26 Points in 9 Games

Connor McDavid has become the fastest player in NHL history to reach 20 assists in just 9 games. The previous record was 20 assists in 10 games, and it was shared by three legends: Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, and Pat LaFontaine.

Connor McDavid’s Pace, by the Numbers

Averaging 2.89 points per game, McDavid projects to end the season with 243 points. That would eclipse Wayne Gretzky’s record of 215 points during the 1985-86 season by 28 points, a record he has held for well over 40 years.

His career best was in the 2022-23 season when he scored 153 points, which is 1.87 per game. Even if he plays at his 2022-23 rate the rest of the season, he would finish near 166 points, which would be a career high. If he plays at last season's rate, he ends up near 152 points. Wayne Gretzky’s record stays alive only if McDavid stays above 2.5 points per game into February of 2027. 

What a First Cup Did for Crosby, Gretzky, Lemieux, Yzerman, and Ovechkin

NHL history separates the greats into two groups, and Connor McDavid is already in the second tier. A second tier isn’t necessarily a bad thing; however, Gretzky, Lemieux, and Crosby won early; Yzerman and Ovechkin waited more than a decade to win. If Connor McDavid were to win the Stanley Cup in 2027, it would come at the age of 30, in his 12th season. With that timeline, McDavid aligns more with the Yzerman and Ovechkin profile, not Sidney Crosby’s. 

Lesson 1: Selling the News is Real: In the days before the Golden Knights clinched the Cup, Jack Eichel's 2015-16 Young Guns PSA 10 sold for $138 to $185. The Cup win pushed Eichel’s sales to between $225 and $232. That same summer in August, they had fallen to around $107, a significant decline from when the run first started.

Connor McDavid's Market Today

Connor McDavid, the best player in the world, still has the cheapest flagship rookie of the three modern greats, but McDavid’s is the one moving the market. His 2015-16 Upper Deck Young Guns #201 in PSA 10 averaged $3,191 across 44 sales, based on the previous three-month average per Card Ladder. The last sale was $3,450 on October 20, up 15%.

McDavid has 2.4 times the PSA 10 supply of either Crosby or Ovechkin 2005 rookie cards, and in terms of volume it trades much more. It trades nearly two times more than Ovechkin's sales over the same window and almost three times Crosby's. That supply is the measuring stick for any Cup bump for the base Young Guns, because thousands of PSA 10s can meet a demand spike.

McDavid’s hot start appears to already be baked into the comps. The flagship rookie’s 15% three-month gain came while hockey collectors had reported that there were softer prices across modern hockey cards. The Connor McDavid Young Guns rookie card has a long history of reacting to the market and to results; $800 during the mid-2020, peaking at between $5,600 and $6,332 during 2021, and as low as $2,025 in the 2025 playoffs.  

Other McDavid rookies, such as the 2015-16 SP Authentic Future Watch Autograph /999 and The Cup Rookie Patch Autograph /99, behave very differently because they are much lower population cards, and there are not thousands of them that will show up on eBay.

The Bottom Line

The Cup is the only thing missing from his resume. A first Cup would certainly cement McDavid's legacy amongst the greatest of all-time, but the patterns say the base Young Guns spikes during the run and comes back down afterward..

If McDavid stays above 2.5 points per game into February, the Gretzky chase becomes the bigger short-term driver than the Cup. The scarce rookie patch autographs are where a career moment has historically stuck, not with a Young Guns rookie card.