McDavid wins fifth Ted Lindsay Award, ties Gretzky for all-time lead
McDavid tied Gretzky with a fifth Ted Lindsay, a peer-voted nod that frames his dominance as more than media consensus: his rivals keep calling him the game's standard.
Connor McDavid now shares the NHL’s Ted Lindsay record with Wayne Gretzky, and the meaning of that tie goes well beyond another line on an already crowded resume. NHL Players’ Association members voted the Edmonton Oilers captain the league’s most outstanding player for 2025-26, giving McDavid a fifth Ted Lindsay Award and reinforcing a simple reality: the players who try to stop him every night still see him as the standard.
That peer verdict carries unusual weight because the Ted Lindsay is the NHL’s only major honor decided exclusively by players. The award began as the Lester B. Pearson Award and was renamed in 2009-10 to honor Ted Lindsay, the Hall of Famer who helped establish the original players’ association. McDavid’s five wins now came in 2016-17, 2017-18, 2020-21, 2022-23 and 2025-26, and only Gretzky has matched him. For Edmonton, the honor also extended a team tradition: the Oilers have won the Ted Lindsay 12 times, more than any other franchise.
McDavid earned the vote with another season that separated him from the rest of the field. He led the NHL with 138 points, piling up 48 goals and 90 assists, and also won the Art Ross Trophy. He played all 82 regular-season games, recorded points in 68 of them, delivered 43 multi-point games and seven four-point games, and ran off a 20-game point streak from Dec. 4 to Jan. 13. He also reached 1,200 career points in 784 games, making him the third-fastest player in NHL history to hit the mark, behind only Gretzky and Mario Lemieux.
The numbers sharpen the historical case around McDavid. His 70-assist season was his eighth, tying Lemieux for the second-most in league history and leaving only Gretzky ahead of him. McDavid is already a three-time Hart Trophy winner and was a Hart finalist again this season, which keeps him in rare company among players whose value has been recognized by both the media and their peers. But the Ted Lindsay, because it comes from opponents and teammates who face the same speed, the same pressure and the same game plan every night, says something more immediate about where McDavid stands right now.
The award was presented as a surprise at Magna Golf Club in Aurora, Ontario, with Lauren McDavid, Brian McDavid, Kelly McDavid, Cam McDavid and four childhood friends helping pull off the reveal. McDavid said the recognition meant a lot because it came from players he battles against every night. With Macklin Celebrini finishing second in the voting and Nikita Kucherov third, the message from the league’s own players was plain: McDavid is still the measuring stick, and his place in hockey history keeps rising even before the final judgment of a Stanley Cup run.
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