Connor McDavid is going to hit 100 assists this season, maybe as early as tonight if he can get three in Dallas. It’s a cool stat, the sort of nice round number that sports fans love. Who doesn’t appreciate seeing somebody get to the century mark, in anything? Whether it’s 100 points or a 100-yard game or 100 RBIs, our sports-fan brains are wired to like the number. Why wouldn’t 100 assists be cool too?
As someone who once wrote a book on NHL history and has never met a current event he can't twist into a YouTube breakdown of something that happened 30 years ago, I’ve been asked a few times: Is McDavid’s chase for 100 assists really as big a deal as people are making it out to be?
And my answer is: No, it’s not as big a deal. It’s actually bigger. McDavid is about to do something amazing, and we’re underselling it.
You could blame McDavid for that, since by this point he’s done so many amazing things over the years that apparently we’ve just become inclined to shrug and toss another accolade onto the pile. But we shouldn’t, and today I’m going to put my historian hat on and try to convince you that this is a bigger story than you think.
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