McDavid vows to get even better
Oilers captain says he’s working on faceoffs, defence
Connor McDavid expects to be even better than he was last season.
Let’s just let that sink in for a moment.
The Art Ross, Hart and Ted Lindsay winner, the only player in the NHL to get 100 points last year, thinks he has even more to bring to the table this winter.
And he’s probably right, given he’s another year older, wiser and stronger, with two rounds of playoff hockey under his belt.
“I think I had a good summer of training,” said the Oilers captain, who reported to training camp at 6-foot-1 and weighing 192 pounds. “I’m very luck to have a lot of good hockey minds surrounding me. Gary (Roberts) and his team in Toronto. I definitely feel good. I’ve worked with him for a long time now. In the gym I felt good, on the ice I felt good. We’ll see.”
Where can he improve? For starters, McDavid wants to be better defensively and wants defenders thinking shot when he has the puck instead of cheating toward the pass all the time.
“You just want to get better in any way you can,” he said. “For me it’s obviously the shot, faceoffs and being more responsible defensively. There are always ways to improve your game.
“You want to keep opponents honest and do different things. If you keep doing the same stuff they’re going to start to get a good read on you so have to be able to hit them with a few new things.”
All players are still learning and improving in their third season and Milan Lucic says McDavid is no different, even though he’s already one of the top two players in the world.
“I think he learned a lot about what it takes to be a captain for a year, what it takes to be a leader and have everyone look up to you,” Lucic said. “Driving the bus and carrying the load for the group, he did that better than everyone last year and he got rewarded by winning the MVP. I think he learned a lot from that and there’s a lot he can gain from that.”