WHERE WILL CONNOR MCDAVID STAND WITH GRETZKY AND OVECHKIN? WIN THE CUP, FIRST
As an all-time talent, he can make inroads by claiming his first championship with the Edmonton Oilers, who overcame a Game 1 deficit against Florida thanks to McDavid’s sweet feed to Leon Draisaitl
This is a supreme time to devour hockey, wearing shorts and flip-flops in early June, watching a breathless evolution on the ice when the NBA is in a quirky parity swirl. If Connor McDavid looks the part of an all-time hero — with blond hair and a beard and a Canadian accent — he cannot be launched in real time until he wins the Stanley Cup.
And if he does so this month, owning a 1-0 series lead after Wednesday night’s 4-3 overtime victory, he would match Wayne Gretzky’s postseason experience. That would be a healthy beginning at 28. Gretzky lost his first trip to the Final against the New York Islanders and overcame them the following year. McDavid lost in Game 7 to the Florida Panthers and suddenly is three victories from an about-face.
Much of his legacy depends on how many championships he wins with the Oilers. He found his raging partner, Leon Draisaitl, for a sweet thriller that overcame a 3-1 deficit. The goal was set up by Tomas Nosek’s delay of game penalty, after he sent the puck over the glass. “Just a great play by Connor. We stick with it and never quit,” Draisaitl said. In combination, try finding a better duo in recent history.
“He's invaluable. So many good things. Clutch, faceoffs, you name it, he does it,” McDavid said. “When he's dug in, there's not many better, maybe nobody better.”
A mesmerizing teammate loves another. Perfect. Will McDavid somehow be better than Gretzky, always The Great One in Edmonton and elsewhere? He is so young with so much to achieve on a Canadian team that finally — after 32 years — might win a title in a forgotten country swallowing American tariffs. Who knows? Certainly not McDavid, humble as he is gifted, wondering about the years ahead.
“I see, obviously, the parallels that everyone wants to write about,” he said. “At the end of the day, this is a different story. Different teams, different group. Just excited to have another kick at the can here. That’s all.”
But he also knows he cannot attack the parallels and keep kicking the can without arriving as often as possible. Already, he has won three MVP awards and five scoring titles. Sidney Crosby also overcame a Cup loss by beating the same team, the Detroit Red Wings, the following year. What are we watching here? “You hear everybody say it — just keep giving yourselves opportunities to be in this position,” McDavid said. “Keep giving yourselves chances to win and eventually it happens. We’ve done that. We’ve put ourselves in another good spot. Learned a lot of lessons last year in that month that we can use this year.”
His general manager, Stan Bowman, won three Cups in Chicago. He visited McDavid last summer, after he was hired by the Oilers, and sensed grim determination. Bowman was out of the NHL for three seasons when the Blackhawks discarded him, claiming he neglected sexual assault reports involving a coach during the 2010 playoffs. A dose of a bitter McDavid helps inspire everyone.
“All he talked about was, ‘I just want to win a Cup' That was it. We didn't talk about anything else. This is his singular focus,” Bowman said. “He’s accomplished everything he could accomplish individually in this sport. He continues to dazzle us every game. You run out of superlatives to talk about him as a player. You could see how badly he wanted it last year when it didn't go Edmonton's way. Right now, he's on a mission.”
Said teammate Adam Henrique: “He just wants to win. You can see the competitive nature in everything that he does off the ice as well. If he’s the benchmark and the best player in the world, and he’s doing all sorts of things to try to be one percent better, that bleeds through everybody else.”
Fans in the United States don’t know much about McDavid. They are more in tune with Matthew Tkachuk, whose winds of motivation led the Panthers to a title. After Game 7, the two met in the handshake line. “We’re gonna see you again next year in it,” Tkachuk told him. “I believed it was going to be us two again. I think we’re the two best teams in the league. And if everything would go to plan, it would probably be us.”
Said McDavid: “Funny to look back on how it’s worked out. Two good teams then, two good teams now. Winning in the playoffs takes everything that you’ve got. There’s a big circus. You can feel like it’s larger than it is. At the end of the day, it’s another series, and we’re playing another great team, and you’ve got to beat them before anything else happens. So they have our complete focus. All of our energy is going into beating the Florida Panthers. There should be nothing else on anyone’s mind.”
Canada faces the Sun Belt. This is what folks up north hate about the league. From way back when until 1993, their teams were dominant — Montreal, Toronto, Edmonton — with 28 championships in 41 seasons. But a victory by the Canadiens allowed champions from Dallas, Tampa Bay, Carolina, Anaheim, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Florida to take over Gary Bettman’s association. Here we go again.
Be certain this series will last longer than Oklahoma City will require to beat Indiana in the NBA Finals. The Pacers had to land a plane in Tulsa to avoid storms down the road. Don’t expect big Cup ratings — not when Boston, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Detroit didn’t make the playoffs. But if you’re wrapped up in Gretzky and McDavid and Alexander Ovechkin, there is drama. Not long ago, McDavid recorded a video after Ovechkin topped Gretzky as the all-time goal leader.
“Congrats, Ovi. What an amazing accomplishment," he said. “Honestly, you're the greatest goal scorer of all time. Such an amazing feat. It's been so fun to watch you chase this down. What can you really say? Honestly, it's been amazing. I’m so happy for you, happy for your family. All the best. Enjoy.”
The seasons carry on. Where will McDavid stand in the end? It’s worth the watch.
###
Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.