NHL’s best is in a bad place
Lopsided defeat latest blow for McDavid, trapped in hockey hell with little hope in sight
It seems difficult, being the best hockey player in the world. It seems like a lot. Connor McDavid came back home to Toronto Wednesday night to play the Maple Leafs. He wore a beard and he wasn’t too interested in talking, and that was all fine.
“Obviously, we’re not in the position that we want to be, but we’ve got 20 games to work our way and get better each and every day and work towards something,” said McDavid before the game.
And then the Oilers got credited with 13 of the first 15 shots, and Leon Draisaitl made Jake Muzzin and Ron Hainsey look silly on the opening goal, and it was tied 1-1 after one. Later, Oilers coach Ken Hitchcock would call it their best road period all season. He would say, we did everything perfect.
Then the Leafs casually blew their doors off. The second-period goals went like this: Mitch Marner all alone for a deflection, behind Oscar Klefbom; Auston Matthews starting a tic-tac-toe play with Kasperi Kapanen for Andreas Johnsson’s 18th; William Nylander sniping from an odd angle on a power play.
Johnsson scored again on another power play, for four goals in seven minutes flat. John Tavares nearly got a laughably good goal in the second, but nabbed one in the third. The Leafs arrived 15 minutes late — a habit lately — and turned the game into a circus without breaking much more than Edmonton’s will. Toronto won 6-2.
“It’s a weird game, because it was 10 minutes,” said Edmonton’s Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who has seen some things over the years. “We’ve shot ourselves in the foot a lot like that.
“You’ve got to play them hard. You’ve got to play them honest. You can’t watch them and swing your sticks around, and that’s exactly what skilled guys want you to do.”
Oilers coach Ken Hitchcock took one question, answered it at length, and walked out of the scrum. McDavid had a quiet night and didn’t speak to the media after the game. Drive safe, everyone.
In fairness, the 22-year-old is dragging a lot of things around, when he isn’t getting dragged down himself. Forget the recent two-game suspension for a head shot. McDavid is third in the league in scoring on the 26th-best record in the NHL. Some of his wingers this season might as well have won a contest. The two from the last game
spent this one on the fourth line, and in the pressbox.
The Oilers have already fired the coach and then the GM, after he constructed a team so bad it kept McDavid out of the Hart Trophy finalists while leading the league in scoring. Edmonton finished 23rd in the league last year, by the way.
It’s gotten to the point where you can read supportive quotes about how McDavid fights through all the interfering crap he gets from opposing players and read it as more of a description of his general plight, trapped in hockey hell.
“He endures a lot,” said winger Milan Lucic, who has four years left on his contract. “Obviously he’s a targeted guy. And he has to go through a lot, but he battles through it. He doesn’t really let it frustrate him, he doesn’t let it bring him down, and he just does his best to try to fight through it and still continue to play ... he’s going to have to deal with that not only now, but for his whole career going forward.”
“He doesn’t get distracted,” said Hitchcock, who replaced the fired Todd McLellan. “He just keeps plowing through things. But I would say if it keeps going, he’s going to say something some day and it’s hopefully going to get everybody’s attention.”
See? Imagine they’re talking about the Oilers organization holding him down, slashing at his ambitions, tackling his dreams, and it all works. Yes, McDavid signed an eight-year deal. He’s trying his best, in every way.
But the Oilers have to dump money because they are paying too many bad players, and the Leafs will have to dump money because they can’t pay too many good ones. As Hitchcock said of Toronto, “They got depth offensively, which is a challenge for us.”
Luck matters. McDavid was the No. 1 overall pick in 2015, Edmonton’s fourth in six seasons, and Toronto nearly got the pick. Auston Matthews was the No. 1 pick a year later, to a Toronto organization rebuilding from its own decades-long incompetence.
“Obviously there are guys in the league like Connor, like Sid (Crosby) that are kind of on their own level, and I think a lot of guys look at that and want to be on their level, obviously,” said Matthews. “But for myself, I measure myself to my own standard and I just want to be the best player I can be.”
But now McDavid is dragging around a sack of hammers, and Matthews is on a team whose Cup window is at least theoretically open. Oh, and Marner gets to be the hometown star. The draft lottery is mathematically weighted, but that doesn’t make it fair.
Look, the Leafs could lose to Boston in the first round again. That would be a disappointment, even a bit of a debacle. And almost every one of them would still be able to tell themselves, it could be worse. I could be the greatest hockey player in the world.