Shocker.
The best player on the Edmonton Oilers was the best player on Team Canada Thursday in their Olympic Games debut.
Connor McDavid made his presence felt early, drawing an early power play in the first period and notching three assists and a team-high six shots on net as the Canadians rolled past Czechia 5-0.
McDavid helped put Canada on the board late in the first period, setting up Macklin Celebrini, then put the game on ice by sending a perfect saucer pass to Nathan MacKinnon to make it 4-0 on a power play and sending a nice feed to Nick Suzuki to make it 5-0.
This comes as no surprise to Oilers teammate Zach Hyman, who fully expected his captain to stand out even among the best players in the world.
“Any room he’s in, he has the skill set that is just elite and above,” said Hyman. “On Team Canada, everybody has an elite skill set but the way I’d put it is if you watch our skate everybody kind of looks the same but there is one guy who looks different. That’s him. And no matter what room or what ice surface you put him on, that is always going to be the case.”
The Oilers captain, who’s been waiting his whole career for this tournament, led all forwards in ice time at 18:04 on a line with Celebrini and Tom Wilson.
Leon Draisaitl, Josh Samanski and Team Germany will take on Denmark later this afternoon.
E-mail: rtychkowski@postmedia.com
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