Oilers really don’t deserve McDavid
This team spinning its wheels despite slew of No. 1 picks
We have to come to terms with this, Canada. We have to sit down on the patio and we have to order a few beers and we have to hash this out, to let it settle. We can get through this, together.
Seriously, where are those beers? We’re going to need them.
Look, I know this isn’t easy. Connor McDavid is a generational player, right? Right. You watch him and he takes your breath away five times on any given night. His skating, his passing, his goal-scoring, even his backchecking. People say he was one of the best backcheckers in the OHL, for god’s sake. He sees the game in a different way, in this beautiful brilliant way. Half the NHL season was about him, and he was playing in Erie.
So yes, it is unfortunate that he is going to . . . oh, jeez. In a just universe we wouldn’t have to say this, but we live in a universe filled with random events, with the indifference of nature. You live, you die, the planets spin on, black holes devour worlds, and stars go out.
See what I did there? I distracted you with the mind-bending vista of the cosmic ballet, and then bam, the bad news. Oh, if you are an Oilers fan this is a great day, a happy day. You probably spent Saturday night clinking big beer glasses, little shot glasses, and possibly your reading glasses when you fell facedown to the floor, insensate, happy as a prisoner who snuck out a side door and found a bar.
Nothing against Oilers fans. You’ve been through a lot, really. Let’s revisit that in a second, the years of pain thing.
But that joy is not shared around the NHL. No, it is not.
The Oilers already had three No. 1 picks in a row, and they kept winning lotteries and letting Oilers president Kevin Lowe say stuff like how they have two tiers of fans, and how half the league would trade rosters with them if they could, and “there’s one other guy in hockey today that is still working in the game that has won more Stanley Cups than me. So I think I know a little bit about winning, if there’s ever a concern.”
That was in 2013. They’ve finished 28th in the league twice since then. Their three No. 1 picks have been supported by just horrific drafting and development and decisions outside the first round, and Edmonton just went ahead and leveraged their 11.5 per cent chance at the No. 1 pick into Connor McDavid. It was reported by Chris Johnston of Sportsnet that going into the final ball, the Leafs actually had a 4 -in-11 chance, Buffalo 3 in 11, and Edmonton 2-of-11. (Carolina and Columbus had single chances.)
Very Leafs, really.
But this is what happens when you fight on Edmonton’s turf. By the way, Oilers owner Darryl Katz, who has already played footsie with Seattle in a successful attempt to sucker Edmonton out of public funds for a new arena, is actively suing the Erie Otters and Sherry Bassin, the mentor of . . . Connor McDavid. Ha, terrific.
Plus, did we mention they already won three lotteries? Ergo, the disappointment. As Coyotes co-owner Anthony Leblanc told Joe Yerdon of NHL.com, “(When I) realized it wasn’t us, I’m not going to lie, I’m like, ‘Holy crap, I hope it’s Buffalo.’ To find out it was Edmonton? That stung. That stung.” As Leafs president Brendan Shanahan said, “They’ve got some luck.”
Buffalo Sabres general manager Tim Murray put it to reporters that he was disappointed for Sabres fans, and said “It’s not the disappoint-
“(When I) realized it wasn’t us, I’m not going to lie, I’m like, ‘Holy crap, I hope it’s Buffalo.’ ” ANTHONY LEBLANC COYOTES CO-OWNER
ment in the player. It’s just the process for me.”
Related opinion: Jack Eichel should perhaps stay in college.
In fairness to the Oilers, in the three years before they got a No. 1 pick the top guys taken were Patrick Kane, Steven Stamkos, and John Tavares. Then Edmonton got Taylor Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and Nail Yakupov. You can get lucky, and not really get lucky.
Of course, just this season, under the current rebuild, they also threw 2014 No. 3 pick Leon Draisaitl in as the second-line centre at 18 years old, watched him struggle, and then sent him back to junior after the world juniors, rather than before. Burning a year of that entry-level deal might have kept someone a touch warmer in the winter. They failed to sign Jeff Petry to a longterm deal, and then moved their best defenceman at the deadline. They did sign Nikita Nikitin to a two-year deal, though. Great idea.
Some Oilers fans took comfort in the fact that their team organically tanked, rather than Buffalo’s controlled demolition. True, true. The Oilers came by tanking honestly, like incompetence was the family business or something.
This may be the problem. The years of pain thing? Well, whose fault has it been? If this Oilers regime is incompetent, like the previous one was incompetent, like the preserved-in-amber scouting staff is incompetent, what does Connor McDavid get them? A reprieve. A second life, or third. McDavid’s career to play with. Sidney Crosby was the last Connor McDavid, and he has a Cup in his nearly 10 years while paired with Evgeni Malkin. Saturday night Crosby scored twice and the Penguins won Game 2 against the favoured Rangers, and Crosby was asked, does the two-goal game take pressure off you? And Crosby replied, “I wouldn’t say that.” It never goes away, he might have said.
Still, Canada, we should not root for McDavid to fail. There’s a chance McDavid will be ruined, wasted, less than he could be, but that’s at least partly up to him. Nobody’s career goes in a straight line, anyway. Gretzky played in St. Louis for a while.
So no, Edmonton doesn’t deserve this, as a franchise. But as Canadians, we must accept that we live in a random universe, and sometimes sports are just as coldly indifferent to what we want as the void. That’s probably how Oilers fans have managed to reach this point, somehow unwilling to just walk away from the wreckage, after all these years.