Connor McDavid is forced to process another Stanley Cup final loss, after the Oilers endured a lopsided 5-1 loss to the Florida Panthers in Game 6 on Tuesday night.Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
Minutes after they’d lost another one, the Oilers tried to rush Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl through their paces.
Last year, under similar circumstances, McDavid came out haggard and still in uniform. This time he was showered and dressed. He managed to get through the clichés without giving anything away.
“Nobody quit,” McDavid said. “Nobody threw the towel in.”
Since when is not giving up the measure of anything?
Draisaitl couldn’t manage such sophistry. After one softball too many – “What is the take-away?” – he snapped.
“The take-away is that we didn’t win,” Draisaitl spat. “Nobody cares. Like, nobody cares.”
That’s the sound of a thoughtful NHLer doing the math in his head. No matter how good you are, the likelihood is that you only get so many kicks at the can.
Historically, two is the magic number. Post-1970, no team has lost two Cup finals in a row and won on the third try. No one’s even gotten to the third.
The glass half-full here is that Edmonton was missing Zach Hyman, but still managed to start strong against Florida. For a moment there, they were right in it.
The glass half empty is that the glass half full is the cheapest sort of excuse. The Oilers had a year to prepare for this exact scenario, and it turned out worse.
McDavid tied with teammate Leon Draisaitl for the playoff scoring lead, but only had one goal in the final series against the Panthers.Mike Carlson/Getty Images
Edmonton was outhustled, out-coached, out-front officed and definitely outquoted. You could not help but be struck by Florida’s ease against Edmonton’s wiriness throughout.
However, when you have organized your entire franchise around one guy, he is the thing that matters. McDavid once again led the league in playoff scoring – tied with Draisaitl – but diminished the longer things went on. By Tuesday’s third period, he was reduced to hero ball, diving in on net alone every time he got the puck. It didn’t get him anywhere.
On the other side, Sam Reinhart scored four times in the contest and it was still hard to pick him out from his teammates. They were all doing pretty much the same thing.
If the Oilers are going to win, two failed experiments have proved one thing – McDavid will have to win it for them. It’s an unfair standard and for the second time, McDavid couldn’t reach it.
He distinguished himself in one game of the six in the finals – Game 2 – and that was an Edmonton loss. In every other contest, he was back in the pack. An impressive pack, but still.
Fans of the Edmonton Oilers say they are devastated after the Florida Panthers defeated the team 5-1 to raise the Stanley Cup for the second year in a row. They say they expected more from the hometown team, but there’s always next year.
The Canadian Press
It seems weird to think that until a week ago, McDavid was the bookies’ favourite to win the Conn Smythe. In the end, Draisaitl was Edmonton’s most starlike star.
Meanwhile, Florida was drawing MVP performances from all over the place. Sam Bennett won the trophy, but three or four of his teammates could just as easily have.
In particular, Brad Marchand was often able to pull his colleagues up to his relentless level. Florida would have a couple of lacklustre shifts, and then Marchand would enter the game like the giant ball in Raiders of the Lost Ark. People actually run from him.
That ability to change the temperature of a game without scoring a goal is the mark of the greats. McDavid didn’t have it this fortnight, which means he’s never had it. I realize we’re not supposed to talk about Wayne Gretzky any more, but at McDavid’s age, he’d already won four Cups.
McDavid still has runway left on which to establish himself as a no-doubt all-timer, but the Gretzky ship has sailed. Wherever McDavid ends up, it’s not going to be on hockey’s Rushmore.
If he can win multiple Cups – big, big if – the perception going forward will be that he needed reinforcements to do it. He doesn’t have that natural lift in the biggest moments that separates legends from everyone else.
McDavid’s contract is up after next year. By that point, he’ll have featured in an Olympics – probably the first and last one in which he is the consensus best player – and be looking down the barrel at 30. It’s most likely that he re-signs in Edmonton. Unless they’ve been beaten crooked like a Mitch Marner, hockey stars stay put.
McDavid, seen here shaking hands with Aleksander Barkov at the conclusion of Game 6 on Tuesday night, is heading into the final year of his contract next season as the Oilers try to end their 35-year Stanley Cup drought.Mike Carlson/Getty Images
But one wonders how finely tuned McDavid’s real-time sense of legacy is. If winning a Stanley Cup is the only thing he hasn’t ticked off his professional to-do list by next March, how big will next year’s playoffs be?
Between now and then, McDavid will have played as much or more than anybody in the NHL. Between the two Cup runs, the 4 Nations and the upcoming Olympics, that’s a lot of miles. One wonders if Draisaitl was just the teensiest bit fresher than his co-headliner in June because he got two weeks off in February.
Next time around, the Oilers could be forgiven for a little letdown. Getting out of the West is no joke – especially not with the Jets, Stars, Avalanche and Vegas all feeling like they let themselves down this year.
McDavid can’t afford letdowns. He doesn’t have the time. If he’s the transformative player people keep telling him he is, another nice run isn’t going to cut it. One finals loss was okay. Two is suspect. Three means you’re the issue.
McDavid has to get back and, once there, he now has to win. To do otherwise would be to put himself in Fran Tarkenton/Jim Kelly territory – a hall of famer most famous for losing the big one over and over again.
So while 2025-26 will be a big year for the Oilers, it could be the defining one for McDavid. Or not. I’m not sure which is worse.
After they spoke on Tuesday, McDavid and Draisaitl tried to vanish. McDavid was quicker. Draisaitl stopped to grab a box of pizza before heading to the bus. For a second there, you could stand in the interview room watching him retreat down the hallway, shoulders hunched, while also watching the Panthers hand the Cup around on a TV screen.
Forget about statistics. That’s the real distance between winning and losing.