‘I wish I was playing better’: Oilers’ McDavid speaks to mortal season
Connor McDavid stood in front of the cameras and microphones like he has 1,000 times before, and said something not many have heard him say. Mark Spector tells us what it was.
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SUNRISE, Fla. — Connor McDavid stood in front of the cameras and microphones like he has 1,000 times before, and said something I’m not sure he’s ever said before.
“The year hasn’t gone the way I would have loved it to, personally. But we’re not after personal success,” said McDavid, who is on pace to finish four goals, 34 assists and 38 points shy of last year’s totals.
“I wish I was playing better. I wish I had played better all year.”
Other than a quick, heroic detour through the 4 Nations Face-Off, and the ability to look ahead at an Italian Olympics a year from now, McDavid’s hockey world — his entire world, really — is consumed with winning the Stanley Cup that got away last spring, here in the very building in which he was standing.
It was here the Amazon cameras caught his legendary rant. It was here he was the best player on the ice in Game 5 to prolong the Final. And it was here that he refused to abandon a decimated Oilers dressing room to accept the Conn Smythe Trophy from NHL commissioner Gary Bettman.
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It was here, in the very dressing room he’ll dress in Thursday night, where the cameras caught him fully in tears, losing a Stanley Cup Final in as painful a manner as it could be lost.
On Wednesday morning, the Oilers filed off the bus and into their worst memory: the visitors’ room at Amerant Arena, for a morning skate before their game against the Panthers. Connor Brown found his gear hanging in the exact same stall it hung in last June.
“It’s not like you can just pretend it didn’t happen, like we weren’t here,” said Brown. “Like what happened last time we were in this building didn’t happen. But I guess it’s more important how you process it. Using it as fuel, rather than dwelling on it.
“It was a really emotional situation that we faced here last spring,” he admitted. “And so I think it’s going to be emotional game tonight. When you come in on a (four-game) slide like this, what you’re looking for is to spin that (emotion) your way.”
McDavid, however, has never enjoyed talking about what happened here in June.
If you don’t win, you see, you have failed to some level. And the great athletes, to the man, do not dwell on failure.
McDavid would never enter a game, or a season, with a soliloquy on a loss. And so he made it clear at one point in September — when that Amazon doc dropped, as we recall — that he would speak to the Game 7 loss one more time, and then no more.
On Thursday morning, he opened the genie’s lantern a tiny crack: “It wasn’t too long ago we were in this building. Obviously, we know what happened. It doesn’t really matter.”
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More intriguing however, was McDavid take on a 2024-25 season in which he finds himself on pace for 94 points. That would be his least productive campaign since his rookie season, when he had 48 points in 45 games, and the first time he ever failed to reach 100 points in a full NHL season.
Since scoring that OT winner at the 4 Nations, he has zero goals, two assists and a minus-7 in three games with Edmonton. And he has only four shots on goal, which tells you how much he’s had the puck on his stick.
“I’d be lying if I said I’ve been feeling good out there. It’s been tough to get going, which is obviously not an excuse. I’ve got to find a way to get going here,” he said. “It was a big, emotional week. An exciting week last week. (But it’s) back to reality pretty quick.”
Some players say they want to hit or be hit, as a catalyst to guide them toward their best game. We asked McDavid, what fires up his furnace when the pilot light goes out the way it has of late?
“It’s getting back to what I do,” he said. “Wanting the puck; taking guys on; being assertive. There is definitely an element of physicality that always helps me, but that’s not necessarily running around hitting guys. It’s winning battles, and keeping the puck alive.
“If I’m not touching the puck, it’s usually a sign that I’m not playing very well. The more times I touch it means I’ve won more battles, been around it a little bit more. I just haven’t been around it enough.”
Nathan MacKinnon awoke Wednesday night with three points versus New Jersey, his first points in three games since the 4 Nations. Sidney Crosby is minus-6 in three games since returning. There are many others who have emerged slowly from Boston, including the Tkachuk brothers, who haven’t played a game yet due to injuries suffered at the tournament.
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The wind that the 4 Nations blew into Canadian hockey fans’ sails has dissipated, and all that’s left for the players who gave us those thrills are tired bodies and lifelong memories.
“It was so much fun. Honestly, so, so much fun,” McDavid said. “Just to be a part of it, the excitement of the games, the passion from the fans. … Playing that meaningful hockey is all I really want to do.”
The next meaningful hockey for McDavid, the kind he played in this arena eight months ago, lies ahead.
Starting Thursday night, McDavid finds himself in the unfamiliar position of trying to build a game that’s ready for it.
