Connor McDavid is set to face the Florida Panthers for the Stanley Cup final for the second year in a row, with the best-of-seven series beginning Wednesday.Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
Connor McDavid was numb after the Edmonton Oilers lost to the Florida Panthers in the seventh game of the Stanley Cup final last summer. He sobbed in the dressing room, and when he came out to address the media he choked on his words.
It is not easy being the world’s greatest hockey player – he is that by every measure at this point – and to carry the mantle of saviour of a proud Canadian franchise in the National Hockey League.
A team from Canada hasn’t won the Stanley Cup since the 1993 Montreal Canadiens. The Oilers have captured five, but none since 1990.
They have lost in the finals twice in that time, to the Carolina Hurricanes in 2006 and then last year after they battled back from a 3-0 deficit against the Panthers. That heroic effort made the loss all the more agonizing.
Within weeks of it, however, Mr. McDavid married his long-time girlfriend Lauren Kyle in an extravagant wedding on a private island in Ontario’s cottage country. The monumental life event helped put the loss behind him.
“It was heartbreaking when they lost, but having the wedding right after that taught him that life goes on,” his mother, Kelly McDavid, said this week. “There is a lot more to life than your job.
“I’ve talked to him about this over the years, that he has to find joy outside of hockey.”
Mr. McDavid has evolved since that bitter defeat, and now Edmonton is back to where it was at this time last year: the same two teams will battle in the Stanley Cup final. The best-of-seven series begins Wednesday at Rogers Place in downtown Edmonton, where a statue of Wayne Gretzky stands in front of the arena – and years from now, probably, one of Mr. McDavid will, too.
He seems far more relaxed than he was a year ago, in his first Stanley Cup final. He was tight as a drum then.
The loss hurt him deeply but he has learned from it.
“We are better for what we went through last year,” Mr. McDavid said last week after the Oilers eliminated the Dallas Stars in five games in the Western Conference final. “It was a great learning experience and it has really driven us all year.”
Edmonton lost the first two games of the opening round to Los Angeles, but has since gone 12-2.
“This run has felt different,” Mr. McDavid said. “It has felt very normal. It hasn’t been as emotional. We haven’t had the highs and we haven’t had the lows. I think that has put us in a good position.
“Some teams get really hot down the stretch and ride it all the way through the playoffs. For us, everything has kind of come together in the playoffs and we’ve been building and building our game.”
McDavid after defeating Team United States in the NHL 4 Nations Face-Off championship game on Feb. 20.Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
Mr. McDavid was a child prodigy and granted exceptional player status in 2012 by Hockey Canada, which allowed him to play at the major-junior level for the Erie Otters as a 15-year-old.
He was the first player chosen in the 2015 NHL draft and was appointed Edmonton’s captain at age 19, at the time the youngest captain in NHL history. He has scored 100 points or more in eight of his 10 regular seasons. His best year was 2022-23, when he had an otherworldly 153 points and led the Oilers to the Western Conference final.
Mr. McDavid has persevered through two career-threatening injuries: as a rookie he broke his collarbone, and in the final game of the 2018-19 regular season, while skating at 40 kilometres an hour, he tore a posterior cruciate ligament and suffered multiple tears in the meniscus, a torn popliteus muscle and a tibial fracture. He chose rehabilitation over surgery – doctors said that had never been attempted with a knee injury so severe – and returned in time for the following season.
A year ago he won the Conn Smythe Trophy for the most valuable player in the Stanley Cup Playoffs even though his team lost. He has won pretty much every individual award that any hockey player can, but has yet to take home his sport’s holy grail.
“Last year I was on a roller coaster,” Kelly McDavid said, speaking about the final round. “I was crying all of the time and so stressed out. I wanted it so badly for him.
“Other than twice I didn’t speak to him for two months. He tends to get into a routine. He never knows what day it is. For him it is practice day, game day or a day off.
“This year things are a lot different. I’m not feeling stressed. He has had us stay at the house with him and Lauren. Last year we didn’t, because Connor did not want any distractions. Certainly I am excited but there is a different level of anxiety. It’s excited and joyful now.”
The Oilers finished third in the Pacific Division during the regular season. It ended with Mr. McDavid, his sidekick Leon Draisaitl and Mattias Ekholm, Edmonton’s top defender, all nursing injuries.
Fans cheer for the Oilers against the Dallas Stars in Game 4 of the Western Conference final.Perry Nelson/Reuters
“To be honest, I was skeptical about their chances in the playoffs,” Kelly McDavid said. “Then they lost the first two games to L.A. and I was pretty certain they wouldn’t win.
“At one point I even told Lauren, ‘You guys are going to have a great summer. It will be fun.’”
The Oilers have come alive in the postseason. Mr. McDavid and Mr. Draisaitl rank first and second in points in the playoffs. Their goalies – Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard – have six victories each. Corey Perry is 40 years old and has scored seven goals to tie for the team lead. Evander Kane had multiple surgeries and missed nearly the entire regular season, but has scored five times. They have 11 players with three or more goals. And as Bob Stauffer, their colour analyst, has noted, they have had 14 different forwards score.
They haven’t had depth like this since the Wayne Gretzky-Mark Messier-Jari Kurri glory years.
“If we didn’t have the depth we have we probably still wouldn’t be in the playoffs,” Jeff Jackson, the club’s chief executive officer and president of hockey operations, said.
He saw Mr. McDavid for the first time when he was 13 and became his agent at 15. He has given up the role since he took on a managerial position in Edmonton last season.
“The first time I saw him he was playing above his age group,” Mr. Jackson said. “He was small, but after about three shifts I said, ‘That kid is so good. He’s just amazing.’”
The loss a year ago was hard to swallow.
“It was a tough blow to get as far as we did and not win,” Mr. Jackson said. “But it was a great experience. The maturity level of our team is much different.
“It took us to Game 3 of the first round to get our mojo together, but I felt really good about the mental makeup of our team and the amazing leadership.”
Mr. McDavid, of course, is the biggest piece of that.
“He keeps evolving as a leader,” Mr. Jackson said. “He matures every single year. Players that come to our team from elsewhere are amazed by him.
“He is a confident, humble person.”
Fans gather outside of Rogers Place before the fourth game of the Western Conference final.Steph Chambers/Getty Images
Stan Bowman visited Mr. McDavid last summer shortly after he was hired as the Oilers general manager.
“The first time I talked to him all he talked about was winning the Stanley Cup,” Mr. Bowman said Tuesday. “He is incredibly determined and driven. There is nobody else you want to go into battle with than a person like that.”
Kelly McDavid and her husband, Brian, will head to Edmonton from Toronto on Tuesday. When they arrive they will stay with their son, daughter-in-law and their dog-in-law, Lenard, a Bernedoodle. Lenard has been seated with Lauren during regular-season games.
“I absolutely see that Connor has matured as a leader the last few years,” Kelly McDavid said. “He was a captain when he was very young, and there was a lot of learning on the job and a lot of trial and error.
“But he was always mature even when he was young. I like to say that he was like an old soul in a young body.”
When the Oilers defeated Dallas in the third round, Mr. McDavid touched the trophy awarded to the Western Conference champion. Last year he did not dare touch it.
“It’s simple, really,” Mr. McDavid said. “I didn’t touch it last year and we lost. Perhaps this time I touch it and we win.”
Kelly McDavid is happy for him, not just because of his standing in the hockey world but because of his life.
“I can see that he is happy,” she said. “I can see it in his eyes. I can see it in his face. I am happy now to have my son back.”
Alison Boulier/The Globe and Mail
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