Mcdavid’s spectacular goal leaves us in awe
Puts him squarely in conversation with best of all time
It’s hard to freeze- frame a hockey game and next to impossible to mount a magical, memorable moment.
But what happened Monday night in Toronto deserved to be preserved in a special place to visit again and again. In a way, the entire day deserved to be distilled and bottled.
Edmonton needed that.
It was just one NHL game in a season of 82, and the two points the Oilers banked with a 6- 4 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs may or may not mean much in terms of the playoff picture. But you can make a case it might mean a great deal in terms of the big picture. What happened Monday in Toronto has a chance to be pivotal.
It began with a morning interview on Toronto radio station The Fan 590 with general manager Ken Holland.
Returning from the IIHF World Junior championships in Ostrava, Czech Republic, the new Oilers boss didn’t really say anything he hasn’t said in Edmonton before. But on the subject of Connor McDavid, he packaged it and put exclamation marks on it that made it a quote to be clipped and pasted in a scrap book.
“I managed some great players in Detroit — Yzerman, Fedorov, Shanahan, the Russian Five, Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Lidstrom, Chelios. I have not managed anybody like Connor,” Holland began. “He’s 22. Zetterberg and Datsyuk just became Zetterberg and Datsyuk when they were 25 and 26. They played in the NHL at 21 and 22, but they were just support parts and they grew into being ready to carry the torch and have the team compete for a Stanley Cup.
“When you factor in Connor’s age and what he’s accomplished … He’s already got on his resume a Hart Trophy and leading the league in scoring once or twice. I haven’t managed anybody that’s as talented as Connor Mcdavid. I feel very fortunate.”
It isn’t so much that he said it as that he said it in Toronto. Most of us who witnessed the Wayne Gretzky Era came to the opinion that we’re watching the greatest player in the game since Gretzky some time ago.
Toronto is the media hub of the nation and an inordinate number of the commentators based there insist on mentioning Auston Matthews in the same sentence.
A substantial number of them also have been responsible for the ridiculous agenda that Mcdavid must manage to get his hockey club into the playoffs to be eligible for the Hart Trophy.
And we won’t get into the number maintaining that Mcdavid, if he doesn’t already want to get out of Edmonton, no doubt will be asking to be traded soon.
Dave Tippett was asked about coaching Mcdavid and Leon Draisaitl.
“When you see them every day and are around them every day, you realize their passion to win. There’s lots of individual accomplishments for them and accolades for them, but both of them want to be really good team players that want to win. They want to push the franchise ahead and be a winning franchise, not just a franchise with a couple of good players.”
Again, Tippett wasn’t saying anything he hasn’t said before. But he was saying it in Toronto to the hearing-impaired.
And with that, it was to the rink for this team that hadn’t won a game there since 2010.
The Oilers had hit the skids after a solid start and hadn’t managed to put two wins together since before the Grey Cup. It was another statement game and this time, not only in the place where Mcdavid had yet to score an NHL goal but in a rare game involving two Canadian teams on national TV in the U.S.
Mcdavid, who hasn’t always come home to play before family and friends and been able to showcase his brilliance, played possessed. He produced four points for the 11th time and scored one of the greatest goals of his career, certainly as spectacular as any goal scored so far this season.
Indeed, Alex Chiasson, who previously has played with such people as Alex Ovechkin, called it the nicest goal he’d ever seen.
If Mcdavid had scored that goal down the freeway in Buffalo or one night in Arizona, it wouldn’t have played out the same.
But forget Mcdavid. This was about the hockey team itself. There was validation in defeating a good Toronto team that went into the game on a 9- 0-1 run. And that truly does mean more to him than the rest of it.
Sometimes you just have to see it to believe it.
I haven’t managed anybody ... as talented as Connor Mcdavid.