EDMONTON — “I never want to be in this photograph again.”
Recall the ESPN commercial, where Sidney Crosby comes to life out of a still shot of the losing Pittsburgh Penguins bench. The Pittsburgh players are stunned in defeat, while Crosby utters the above quote seconds after the great play-by-play man Mike Emrick shouts, “The Detroit Red Wings are the Stanley Cup champions!”
Back in 1983, ESPN had never even heard of hockey.
All Wayne Gretzky had was a walk past the New York Islanders dressing room door, and the realization that while the champs were nursing all kinds of bruises and injuries, Gretzky, Kevin Lowe and the boys were walking out of the rink with neither limp nor abrasion.
The takeaway? Maybe there was more to give, after all.
While Crosby would win in his second crack at the Red Wings in 2009, and Gretzky’s Oilers lay waste to the Islanders dynasty in 1984, today Connor McDavid begins the journey to the place that No. 97, 87 and 99 were destined to arrive at from the time they were 10 years old.
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Watch the Stanley Cup Final on Sportsnet
With the Stanley Cup within reach, the Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers are set to battle once again for hockey’s ultimate prize. Watch every game of the Final on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+.
“You know, there’s steps to everything,” McDavid began on Media Day at the Cup Final. “When you’re a kid, you just want to play in the NHL. Then you want to be successful, and do all these great things. And then there comes a point where it’s only about winning.
“So you want to say that it’s a lifelong thing? I don’t know about that, but it’s for sure a few years here with this core, and we’re looking to finish the job.”
When Crosby won his first Cup, in his second try, it was only his fourth pro season. He was still 21.
Gretzky was 23, but not unlike McDavid, had been linked to Big Stanley since he was about 11 years old.
“It’s everything he’s ever dreamed of. It’s everything that he ever put his work in for, that he grinds for, that he plays through injuries for,” said Leon Draisaitl, who likely knows McDavid better than any other teammate. “It means everything to all of us. (But) he has the — I don’t know if you want to call it a burden — but being the face of this franchise, a Canadian franchise…
“Yeah, he wears it and he embraces it. It’s what makes him special.”
It’s probably unfair to say that Gretzky wanted to win a Stanley Cup any more than Mark Messier, who won the Conn Smythe in ’84. Or that Crosby craved it any more than Evgeni Malkin, who won the Conn Smythe in ’09.
The core of this team has grown up with similar dreams, 12 Canadians among its starters, alongside four Swedes and a German whose father, Peter Draisaitl, was a three-time Olympian and Germany’s best eishockey player for a time.
Darnell Nurse was raised in Hamilton. He’s been watching big, shutdown defencemen hoist that Cup for as long as he can remember.
“You go to the Hockey Hall of Fame, and as a hockey player you don’t ever touch the Cup,” Nurse said. “I loved the New Jersey Devils, and watching them raise the Cup — watching Scott Stevens raise the Cup — it was pretty cool. Watching Ray Bourque raise the Cup…
“There are moments when you’re growing up that you always look back on, and for me now having the opportunity just to compete for it. It’s a special moment.”
Does it really matter, when those of us on the outside use words like “legacy” when discussing McDavid and the Cup? How is that even our business?
The hockey world may agree that true greatness has to come with a Cup or two, but in the moment here in Edmonton, can anyone really have a handle on what this second try at a Stanley Cup means to McDavid?
“I don’t think you can put into words how much that means to him,” said defenceman Mattias Ekholm, who embarks on his third Final on Wednesday night. “I mean, I see him every day. This is what he lives for, right? This is about the only thing he hasn’t won yet, I feel like.
“He does everything in his power — nobody else can lead that way, I think. He’s a super professional, and I understand that that shiny silver thing has been on his radar for a long time.
“Hopefully this is the year.”
