EDMONTON — To everyone who isn’t cheering for Team Canada at the Olympics, or bleeding the blue and orange while the Edmonton Oilers try to finish the job again this National Hockey League season, you may want to avert your eyes.
Connor McDavid rolled out of a Pilates session on Thursday, picked up the phone for his first of a thousand interviews now that he’s back home in Edmonton, and declared of the coming season, “I feel like I got lots to prove.”
What possibly would McDavid have to prove to anyone?
“I’ve had a lot of very good years, and I wouldn’t categorize last season as one of those,” he said of a 100-point season in 67 games, his lowest in five years. “I’m excited to see how good I can be, motivated to play hockey at the highest level at the Olympics, and to continue to push this group to winning.
“Whether people believe me or not when I say that, I feel like I’ve got lots to prove.”
Yes, we peppered McDavid’s infield with a few questions about his pending contract, in a wide-ranging conversation. And we’ll get to that.
But far more intriguing, as McDavid begins his second decade in the NHL, is how he looks back on a 26-goal campaign last year – the lowest since his rookie season. As if all those times fans yelled “SHOOT THE PUCK!” at their TV have finally crystalized, and the Oilers captain has realized that mere mortals score 26 goals.
“I want to prove that scoring 50 or 60 is not a one-off,” McDavid, 28, said, his dog Lenny barking in the background. “I’ve had 50 goals, and I’ve had 100 assists, and I like the goals a little bit more.”
He laughs at that, clearly something a younger McDavid would never have said. But he’s been an NHL captain now for 10 years. He has two Stanley Cup Finals, over 700 games and 14 major NHL awards under his belt.
He’s comfortable, now, in the skin of a player who can talk the talk.
“Listen, ultimately, I want to help this team win … and I’m happy playing the passer role. I’m always going to be that player,” he said. “But I’d like to be just a little bit more — not necessarily selfish — but assertive with my chances.
“I have times where I get the puck in good spots and I’m thinking, ‘What’s the next play?’ When I should be thinking, ‘I’m going to score here, I’m going to shoot, or I’m going to take this to the net.’
“That’s when my game is at its best. (He’s been) maybe a little bit too pass-first the last couple of years.”
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The prairie fall arrives much as it did a year ago, with the bitter memory of a Cup Final loss to Florida lingering in the air, like the dust kicked up by a combine. It shapes McDavid’s team somewhat – not so much the fact Edmonton lost, but how the Panthers laid down a game that the Oilers simply could not overcome.
“In fairness to us, it’s not just the Edmonton Oilers that don’t know how to beat it. It seems the rest of league can’t beat it either,” McDavid points out. And that is fair.
But the loss has set McDavid to thinking — perhaps re-thinking some things that maybe aren’t always the way they seem.
“Florida and us proved it. Home-ice advantage … Does it matter? Maybe, but not all that much,” said the captain of a team that won the three series it opened on the road, then lost to Florida despite having home-ice advantage.
It’s not where you play, McDavid now knows. It’s how you play. And the team that dictates how the game is played tends to win.
“We’ve got to master our game,” he said. “We’re already pretty good at it, but we’ve got to get to a level that nobody can touch. Set a culture and a tone for this year that’s a championship culture. That championship mindset.”
The sameness is a bit different this season. As Cat Stevens wrote, the first cut is indeed the deepest.
“Two years ago it was heartbreaking. And you’re a little bit broken, a little bit beaten down emotionally,” McDavid recounted. “The highs and the lows of the Vancouver series. Our first time winning the West. Being down three and then tying the series up. It was just an emotional swing after emotional swing. Last year was less emotional, less of a roller-coaster. It was less draining, I would say.
“Everybody feels a little bit fresher, if that makes sense,” he said. “It was easier to dust yourself off and get back to work. At least, that’s how I found it to be.”
Dusting oneself off this September means figuring a new contract for McDavid, and though the circus has already begun it will kick into a higher gear when he meets the Edmonton media on Friday.
He gets it.
“With me being me — in this position, in this market — people are going to talk about it. That’s understandable, and that’s fair,” McDavid said. “You know, we’ve been at this a long time. We’re here to play hockey, we’re here to do a job, and if someone saying something, or writing something, prevents you from doing that, then maybe you’re in the wrong business. The wrong line of work.
“It’s white noise. That’s all it is.”
Opening night against the Flames is more than four weeks away. We wondered, what could possibly change between now and then to persuade he and agent Judd Moldaver to bring their contract ask to the collective desk of the Oilers’ front office?
“The easy answer is, nothing needs to change. Nothing. I don’t need to see anything,” McDavid said of the Oilers’ team construct, or what the horizon may look like in Edmonton. “Time is on our side, and I’m just not in a rush to make a decision. We’re having lots of conversations, believe me, as a family, player and agent, (wife) Lauren and I…
“I’m just not in a rush to make this decision.”
