Sporting icon Wayne Gretzky, 65, witnessed his first NHL team, the Edmonton Oilers, select forward Connor McDavid as the No. 1 pick in the draft back in 2015.

Prior to the 2015 NHL Draft, Gretzky gave an inspiring message regarding McDavid before June 26, the day of the event.

It was the case despite Gretzky not experiencing draft day in 1979 before playing his first game with the Oilers in the NHL.

“The good news is he's going to a wonderful city and the people there are going to treat him with a great deal of respect,” said Gretzky about McDavid, as per the report published on the HuffPost website. “They're going to idolize this young man because he's that good of a hockey player.”

Since the Oilers had the first overall draft selection in 2015, it was widely expected that they would pick top prospect McDavid, which proved to be the case eventually.

“They're going to learn a lot as they go along here because you have to experience it yourself to know exactly what it's all about,” Gretzky remarked about the McDavid family before the draft day went down 11 years ago.

Notably, McDavid has gone on to exceed expectations in his NHL career at the Oilers, starting from his first season in 2015-16. He became the youngest captain in the history of the league at just 19 years and 266 days of age on October 5, 2016.

In just 794 appearances in 11 regular seasons, McDavid has scored a whopping 1,220 points (409G / 811A). With that, he secured the Art Ross Trophy for the top-scorer in the league six times and the Maurice Richard Trophy for the leading goal-scorer once in the 2022-23 season.

McDavid has been honored with the Ted Lindsay Award for the most outstanding player and the Hart Memorial Trophy for the most valuable player on five and three occasions, respectively. Also, he earned the Conn Smythe Trophy for the most valuable player in the Stanley Cup Playoffs in 2024.

Moreover, the Oilers joined the NHL in a merger with the World Hockey Association (WHA) in 1979 with Gretzky on their roster. Since then, they have secured the No. 1 pick in the draft on four occasions, thrice in three years at one point in time.

Before picking McDavid in 2015 as the first overall selection, they brought in Taylor Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and Nail Yakupov in 2010, 2011, and 2012, respectively.

Wayne Gretzky was not drafted to the NHL during his illustrious career

Wayne Gretzky has been in the sport for nearly a quarter of a century, but he wasn’t drafted into the NHL or any other professional league prior to that.

​The Brantford, Ontario, native had signed with the Indianapolis Racers in 1978 on a seven-year contract in the WHA. Before the deal went through, at that point in time, he was a free agent at just 17 years of age.

“I never really thought about not getting drafted. It wasn't something that ever bothered me,” Gretzky said, per HuffPost. “Even when I signed in the WHA, originally I signed for seven years, I really felt like I was going to play in the WHA for seven years and I might not even get into the NHL until I was 25.”

Following his trade to the Edmonton Oilers later in the year, he became a part of the NHL in 1979 alongside them when the WHA merger was complete.

Gretzky was drafted just once in his career as an amateur in the Ontario Major Junior League (OMJHL) in 1977. He was the third overall selection by the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds after Tom McCarthy and Steve Peters made the OMJHL.

Would Wayne Gretzky’s career have been different if he had been drafted to the NHL as a teenager? Tell us your views in the comments.

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Written by

Arjun Sharma

Edited by

Kaamna Dwivedi