EDMONTON — Connor McDavid and the Stanley Cup.
Was it not inevitable that the two would, one day, pair together like rum ‘n’ Coke? Or French fries and McDavid’s most feared condiment, ketchup, one seemingly made for the other? Or made better by it?
Yes, we know what he hasn’t accomplished yet. We’ve been watching all along, just like you.
And we are well aware of the formidable bullies known as the Florida Panthers, the impervious barrier once again separating McDavid from the girl he’s supposed to win before this movie ends.
But other than your own local squad being in this Stanley Cup Final, is there another storyline that could draw Canadians to their television on a warm June evening more than the magnet that is Connor and the Cup?
Is there a true hockey fan out there — even one who resides in Calgary — who could not acquiesce to McDavid’s brilliant command of our sport? Who would not wish him The Great Hoist one day?
Listen, he’s going to win it, eventually.
The same way the puck found his stick in overtime at the 4 Nations, or Sid Crosby’s that golden day in Vancouver, ol’ Stanley has a history of sidling up next to our game’s greatest for a lap around a rink in June, and a trip up to the lake in July.
Today, the man they call McJesus is 28 years old and flush in the prime of his athletic window, a body not overtaxed by the journey commanded by a mind that has accrued the commensurate experience required to guide hockey’s Lamborghini through the hairpin curves and straightaways of a Stanley Cup Playoff game.
You know — we all know — that with the stakes what they are, there will be perhaps two or three moments in each game of these Finals when McDavid will do something — a pass, a tight turn, a burst around an overwhelmed defenceman — that causes your jaw to drop.
It’s a guarantee over the next two weeks, and that’s what makes this Stanley Cup Final appointment viewing.
No player in our game makes a swifter pivot to lose a checker in the offensive zone, or bolts out of a corner with the puck in a manner that shakes down defensive structure the way No. 97 can.
No player drags an entire penalty killing box across the zone as he skates right to left across the top of the slot, then delivers the biscuit to the tape of the dangerous Leon Draisaitl, a 50-goal scorer standing in his office, somehow forgotten about in that moment of terror created when McDavid attacks.
It was with a sense of resignation that Dallas head coach Pete DeBoer watched McDavid swoop to that loose puck in Game 5. Even with Roope Hintz — DeBoer’s quickest forward — in tenacious pursuit, as McDavid blazed in on that breakaway, DeBoer’s hockey brain told him only one thing:
“It’s game over.”
“My hockey brain goes to, that’s probably one of the nicest goals I’ve seen him score,” said Draisaitl, who’s seen ‘em all. “Of course, there’s only one player in the world that can do that in that moment.”
Would any Canadian deny McDavid his Gary Bettman hand-off, in return for all the highlights he’s given us over a decade?
Whether it was teenaged Connor skating through five hapless Columbus Blue Jackets, a young-20s McDavid making the New York Rangers look like the Johnstown Chiefs, or the shot he ripped past Connor Hellebuyck in Boston this February for Team Canada — how many times have we all stopped in front of the morning sports loop while getting ready for work to re-watch his latest masterpiece?
On Friday, it was a clutch breakaway in Dallas — the game-winner, of course. Come Thursday, it will be some new sorcery.
Today, McDavid captains a team that can record three shutouts in four playoff games. He’s killing penalties and taking his share of the lead-protecting minutes that limited the Stars to an absurd 14:06 of time in which they held a lead in the West Final.
“Their commitment to defend, it’s not just their defence,” DeBoer said in defeat. “All their best players are defending hard. And then you also have that game-breaking ability. Their power play killed us in the series … and I would have liked to have seen, if we could have got them in a hole, how they would have responded.
“We never did.”
The suits in Edmonton have finally done right by McDavid. He has a stout team around him, with the best Oilers blue line since the mid-80s.
Nineteen separate Oilers have scored a goal this spring, and 11 have three or more. They are true killers in close-out games now, winning nine of their past 10 — the only loss coming in Game 7 at Sunrise a year ago.
They have gelled into a team on a 12-2 run, a skein that would impress in November or December, let alone in April and May.
“Some teams get really hot coming down the stretch, and they ride it all the way through the playoffs,” McDavid said. “For us, it’s kind of come together in the playoffs.
“Our best hockey is still in front of us.”
He has always led on the ice. But now, with over 800 combined NHL games under his belt, McDavid leads at the podium as well.
He knows the narratives that are out there, and he knows what he wants people to be thinking and saying about his team.
And make no mistake. It is his team.
“I think this run has felt different than last year. It’s felt very normal,” McDavid said after dousing Dallas. “It hasn’t been as emotional. We haven’t had the highs and we haven’t had the lows … and that puts us in a good position.”
Then the dagger, for those who wonder how this Cup Final could possibly have a different outcome than last year, when the Panthers outlasted Edmonton in seven games.
“Those games can be emotionally draining,” McDavid said. “We’re not drained.”
