EDMONTON — You’re Miro Heiskanen. You are one of the best defensive players in the world. Rather than being a modern-day “defenceman,” he was essentially the fourth forward on the ice, receiving the majority of Norris Trophy votes in the offensive zone. You are a defender. you play defense, man. Probably better than all but a few people alive today. You know what you’re doing out there.
So when you see Connor McDavid take a pass from Leon Draisaitl, you prepare yourself accordingly. You know his speed. You know his shot. You know his creativity. When he blows past Sam Steel – a very good penalty killer, mind you – on the outside with a simple helpless stick check, you start to turn to the outside. McDavid moved toward the sideline and attacked the net from the side. Maybe he’ll try to tuck it into a corner, maybe he’ll try to go around the cage, maybe he’ll try one of those reverse VH-busting sharp-angle roof jobs that are all the rage these days. But he wants to get out.
There is no other way for him to go, right?
Suddenly, McDavid stopped and it was all over. You are toast. You have to turn your neck 90 degrees to the left to see the person, and all you see is a blur of blue and orange disappearing from your peripheral vision. You thrust your back out in a futile attempt to throw him off balance, but he’s already pulling the puck back, dragging it across your body and between you and the steel like a seasoned spelunker. An incredibly narrow road.
When you whip your head around and flail your one-handed stick in desperation where you want it – guess what? hope? — McDavid It could be, the puck was in the net, and McDavid somehow placed the puck precisely on the left shoulder of Jake Oettinger — who was no slouch himself in the goal — with a shovel ball action. Not a wrist shot. Not a clean backhand in open space. Not a jam-packed job. A shovel. The guy looked like he screwed up in a booth at Belmont, but he still hit a perfect, unstoppable, unbelievable shot.
As you spin in a circle, all you can do is slump your shoulders and give a half-hearted shrug as you and Steele, Aisha Lindell and Wyatt Johnston wander around the crease, helpless. They exchanged blank looks, as if to say: “What on earth just happened?”
Just annoying, to be honest 😤 pic.twitter.com/KRcj2GF3El
— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) June 3, 2024
“Trying to get to the middle of the ice, that’s the best way I think possible,” McDavid said with a shrug.
Yes. snort.
McDavid added a delicate saucer pass late in the first period to set up Zach Hyman’s power-play goal. That was enough for the Dallas Stars to win 2-1 in Game 6 and go home. That’s how you win a game in which you’re down 35-10, setting a new record low in field goals and a record high in field goal differential in a series decider. This is how you beat back-to-back division champions and get to the Stanley Cup Finals. That’s how you get one step closer to living up to the impossible hype that accompanied you entering the league nearly a decade ago. Well, add in a penalty that somehow killed off 28 straight power plays and goaltender Stuart Skinner far exceeded expectations and first-year coach Chris Knoblauch (Kris Knoblauch) Pushed all the right buttons, and there’s another one of the five best players in the world using the same power play unit as you, and, well, okay. The Edmonton Oilers have a lot going for them.
But this time of year, every team has a lot to do. But they don’t have McDavid. No one does this. No one ever has. Finally, after nine seasons of this wonderfully human GIF show toiling away in relative obscurity in northern Alberta – as far removed from American primetime television as possible due to a general lack of foresight on the part of American rights holders – McDavid started to come into his own.
He deserves it and the hockey community deserves it. We all deserve to see the best on the biggest stage.
Best ever? Well, hockey protocol states that the Stanley Cup is a requirement to be in the conversation, so maybe we’ll have to wait a few weeks. Or, you know what, maybe we don’t. Look, there’s always recency bias at play, but go look at what an NHL goaltender looked like in the early 1980s, 5 feet tall, wearing scrawny little pads, playing in that awkward standing style. Imagine how McDavid would have reacted against those goalies, against all the goalies in the league. Sure, he’s headhunted every night by the same fourth-line thugs who once roamed the hockey world like dinosaurs, but can they even get into this guy’s neutral zone?
It feels like a bit of an exaggeration to say that no one else in the history of football has scored in this way, but then again, right? Why do we always feel the need to check ourselves, qualify, lie around, waffle, fidget? This is talent we’ve never seen before, doing things we never thought possible. It’s hockey heresy to say McDavid is the greatest hockey player of all time, because it’s hockey heresy to say he’s even the greatest Edmonton Oiler of all time. Wayne Gretzky is the most dominant athlete in the history of North American team sports. period. One. The greatest career ever.
But can he do it? That?
Can we at least acknowledge that McDavid is the most gifted, gifted, jaw-dropping hockey player of all time? This is not hyperbolic. This is obvious. That’s right in front of us. Say it loudly. Admit it. Embrace it. Celebrate. It’s great to be a hockey fan. What a wonderful time to be alive.
“That’s good – seen it before, but good,” Draisaitl deadpanned, while hundreds of frantic fans chanted “We want the trophy!” Rolling the windows, the oil was visible from 104 Avenue in the press conference room at Rogers Place. “There’s only one player in the world who can make something like this happen.”
A player. A player in this game. in this league. In this world. Maybe in the history of the sport.
The grandest stage is waiting for you and it will be a must-see. That’s always been the case for McDavid.
(Photo: Andy Devlin/NHLI via Getty Images)
