(Sunrise) Connor McDavid arrived at the podium with his stern expression, the same as usual, really, and he quickly confessed: “I can’t wait for this madness to be over.”
This madness meant this media crowd gathered in front of him, in front of his podium, as part of this media day at Sunrise, an obligatory passage before the start of a Stanley Cup final.
It wasn’t going to be his favorite moment of the final, and with some crazy questions, often without a common thread (“what is the most Hollywood side of you?”), we could guess that the Oilers captain would have preferred be somewhere else, for example in a dentist’s chair.
But he stayed there, straight as an oak tree, cap screwed on his head, for a good twenty minutes, talking about this final which is coming, the journey taken by his club before arriving here.
“We understood that we had a good team even when things weren’t going well for us at the start of the season,” he explained. Our club came together, and it was a good thing to have to face this adversity so quickly in the season. We proved that we could overcome all obstacles. »
Connor McDavid is now 27 years old. He has been with the Edmonton Oilers since 2015, when the Alberta club drafted him with the very first pick in that year’s draft. In nine seasons, he has only two seasons with fewer than 100 points, and that includes a pandemic-shortened season, and that includes his first season, also shortened, this time due to a broken collarbone. He just concluded 2023-24 with “only” 132 points, having obtained 153 points the previous season.
But everyone knows very well what he’s missing: a Stanley Cup ring.
Hockey is a team sport, as we all know, and because of that reality, the captain isn’t the only member of the Oilers who is missing something. It’s the same reality for several others, including Leon Draisaitl, a year older than the other, who also has 100-plus point seasons, but not rings. At least, not yet.
He too begins to hear about it.
“We grew up together in this league, we were 18 years old, 19 years old,” Draisaitl told Sunrise on Friday. We were young men arriving in this league at the same time. Over the years, this desire to win has become more and more important to us. Knowing all the work he does, all the work we do, there have been a lot of disappointments over the last few seasons. But we are here, and we give ourselves a chance to win. »
“There are things he can do at times, and there’s only one player in the world who can do that,” Draisaitl admitted.
Over the next few days of this final which begins Saturday evening in Florida, there will be a lot of talk about 1993, this very long Canadian drought. It will be about the Oilers, who are often, wrongly to be honest, presented as “Canada’s team”. Which suggests that an entire country is lining up behind the same team. Which is, at best, illusory.
It will also be about Connor McDavid and his legacy. If he doesn’t win this cup which has eluded him for too long, will he be considered in the same way as Wayne, Sydney and other Marios, who all have rings?
The question is unresolved and will remain so for at least a few more days, in this very building where the Oilers bosses mentioned his name during the 2015 draft.
“It’s funny how it works sometimes,” he added. The circle has come full circle, almost nine years to the day in the same place. When I think about it, it goes by so quickly. I have the impression that all this was yesterday, and here we are again in the same place, nine years later. »
He got up and left, still with the same stern look, which will perhaps only disappear with the addition of a ring to his fingers.