He walks around experienced defenders, he makes passing plays through bodies as if they arent there, he processes the game on a level Edmonton hasn’t seen in a long time. The Edmonton Oilers landed in Missouri last night and will be lacing their skates up tonight in their first game vs. the St. Louis Blues. It was a gaggle of media reserved only for the Cardinals in St. Louis, with Blues players joking “Oh, it must be Connor McDavid night”.
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But it turned out to be Fabbri – not his longtime friend McDavid – who put his name on the scoreboard.
A few might view the coverage and hype for McDavid drenched in hyperbole.
Players like that leave an impact that changes the league in so many ways. “They play that way”.
“We all see what he can do in practice and the games”, Hall said of McDavid.
If he is all of the things they say he is, can he have the same impact as Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin did coming out of the 2004-05 lockout? Can he change the game forever? Edmonton coach Todd McClellan, making his debut with the Oilers as well after seven years in San Jose, thought playing against the Blues was a good test for McDavid.
Oiler management has been insistent on this: Fans and reporters need to lower their expectations for McDavid. “When they get a retweet or a reply or a favourite from one of their favourite players, it means a lot to them”. There are others, with far more knowledge and experience than myself, that say you have to go back 30 years before you can find a player of McDavid’s caliber. It was back in 1978 and the principle was a kid named Wayne Gretzky. “I’m curious too. That’s a good thing”. “He can definitely change a franchise’s fortunes”. “Coming out of the U. of Alaska-Fairbanks Parayko slid under most scouts radars but now in the NHL spotlight everyone will see the talent of the 6’5” defenceman with nice speed, smooth hands, and great hockey IQ.
But it won’t erase that sting of four straight seasons of powerful regular season play, punctuated by ugly bouts of postseason ineptitude. He’s a two-time scoring champion with five 100-point seasons. Then he put up another 49 points in 20 playoff games. Sidney Crosby is the best player in the world and he still has bad games. The consensus viewpoint is that it would be exceptional if McDavid could generate around 70 points. That was a different era, though, and hard to compare.
Connor’s domination of the Ontario Hockey League has been well chronicled.
When Elliott was told that Pietrangelo claimed it wouldn’t happen again, the goalie replied: “He actually did it again in the third period and I was paddle-down ready for it. Tough to start a game like that, but we kind of kept our heads even-keel and knew that sticking to our game plan we could pull it out”. He was a 15-year-old representing Canada at the World Under-18 Championship in Russian Federation, two years younger than the bulk of his competition. When he was 17 he was averaging 2.55 points per game as an unstoppable force one could only hope to contain for a short time. “I know that Connor has the tools to handle the pressure, and we’ll do everything we can to help him”. His goal came midway through the game and tied the score 1-1, electrifying a crowd that had quieted after a pre-game ceremony that featured Cardinals catcher Yadi Molina dropping the ceremonial first puck. He’s been dominating ever since.
At 15 he was already a better skater than half the National Hockey League. The 6-foot-2, 215 pound left-shooting defencmen uses his big frame to box out opponents to win puck battles, takes the body and fill shooting lanes. It allows him to turn players inside out, to close in on the back check and to separate when he has open ice.
And that was just an assist.
“I came off the bench and I saw the play there”, Fabbri said.
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McDavid plays like Superman, but acts like Clark Kent. He’s so soft-spoken that he is barely audible during mass interviews.
