EDMONTON — They’re done talking about Mitch Marner in Toronto. Or, at least, they should be about ready to move on any time now.
In Vancouver, Quinn Hughes is still two seasons removed from free agency, and already the media has Jim Rutherford pouring his soul out on the possibilities surrounding the Canucks’ best player, the heartbeat of their current lineup.
“Quinn’s future is so important to this franchise, and this city. Everybody is aware of it, and everybody will talk about it — until we get dizzy,” Rutherford said. “You can spin this thing 1,000 different ways. There’s only one guy who’s going to make that decision.”
In Calgary that guy was Matthew Tkachuk. Then it was Johnny Gaudreau. Both American — like Hughes.
Both Flames chose greener pastures outside of the 403, while Hughes has two brothers playing in New Jersey, a magnetic pull he may not be able to repel.
Of course, here in Edmonton, we have our own complexities. You may have heard.
Connor McDavid is not signed yet, and yes, folks here are freaking out just as much as they did in Toronto a year ago, when Marner skated through a season without a dreal, the rhetoric getting surlier and surlier as the months passed by.
“It’s hard. I get it. I understand that there’s a lot of anxiousness, or anxiety,” said general manager Stan Bowman, who took the podium on the opening day of Oilers training camp, not 24 hours after McDavid had given Oilers fans one more audio clip to fret over.
“My wife and I love being in Edmonton, and we have every intention to win here in Edmonton,” McDavid had told Elliotte Friedman and Kyle Bukauskas the previous morning in an interview for the 32 Thoughts Podcast.
“I have all the faith in the world in this 25-26 season … Beyond that remains to be seen,” he said, cryptically. “We have time, it’s our decision. We’ve earned that and we’re going to take our time with it.”
In a world where context is a luxury, where so few take the time to flesh out the whole story, the only six words in that quote that stuck with Oilers fans were, “beyond that remains to be seen.”
Nobody here has time for McDavid to take his time.
No one in B.C. wants to hear about a reunion of the Hughes brothers, if it means the Canucks might be losing the best defenceman ever to wear the jersey.
No one wants to be Calgary, where fans erupted in chants of “McDav-id’s Leav-ing!” at a rookie game on Sunday. (They’re loving this drama in Cowtown, where they’ve felt the sting of rejection.)
As training camp opens, Bowman is some GM version of a duck — working furiously below the waterline to secure his team’s meal ticket for at least three or four more seasons. But the Bowman we see is calm and confident, gliding through a press conference in even tones and soothing assurances.
“I realize that’s on everyone’s mind, and the media and the fans, and it’s on our mind too. (But) he’s been very consistent with what he’s been saying to the media, as well as to myself, and so we just kind of go with it,” Bowman said.
“I just trust what Connor says. When Connor says there’s nothing that he wants more than to win in Edmonton, I believe him. I don’t know why anyone else wouldn’t? I love hearing it when he says that that’s his singular focus … to win in Edmonton.
“For me, I take it at face value. I have no reason to question him.”
In Vancouver, they have two seasons to build a team that Hughes simply could not walk away from. But even then, Rutherford fretted on Wednesday that they could expend a bunch of assets trying to please Hughes, and he could leave anyhow because he wants to play with his brothers.
Back in Alberta, they thought the trump card had been played when McDavid’s best buddy, Leon Draisaitl, signed an eight-year deal that kicks in this season. The McDavids and Draisaitls are very close, and Leon’s signing was seen as the canary in the coal mine when it came to McDavid’s intentions.
He’d politely sign an eight-year contract on July 1, and the two families would raise babies together, becoming to Edmonton what the Sedin brothers are in Vancouver: Icons who never left.
Now that this contract thing dragging on longer than folks’ attention spans would like, a new side of McDavid is emerging. How could he be so rude, dragging Oilers fans’ hearts around like this?
What about the team? It will be a distraction!
“There is always this thought about, ‘Oh, he doesn’t want to interrupt anything. He doesn’t want to drag this into the season,’” Draisaitl told 32 Thoughts. “Like, what is he interrupting? He’s not interrupting anything.
“This is two sides negotiating whatever they’re negotiating. I’m still very confident.”
In a metro area of about 1.5 million, Leon, that makes one of you.
