Despite the fact that the Edmonton Oilers will be playing in the first game of the Stanley Cup Final on Saturday, this work week must be considered a sad one. On Monday June 3 an article written by Greg Cote, a sports writer for the Miami Herald, was published. In this article Connor McDavid was blatantly and unrepentantly blasphemed. I don’t mind admitting that my eyes fill with tears as I think about what was written for the whole world to see. Here is the brunt of the offence:
“Connor McDavid is overrated. Boom. He puts up big, impressive stats, yes. Fine. But should he really be called ‘generational,’ called the best player in the sport, when in nine seasons he has yet to lead his team to a Stanley Cup? Edmonton truly had one of those players, once. His name was Wayne Gretzky. He’s why the Oilers bunched five Stanley Cup wins in 1984–90. McDavid? No Gretzky. He has the requisite nicknames—McJesus, The Chosen One—but he has not proved beyond-stats transcendant, able to lift a franchise to ultimate heights. McOverrated.”
Never mind that the Great One led Edmonton to four cups, I can honestly say that I am surprised that Cote’s computer was able to colour it’s pixels in order to form those words, I’m surprised that the printer was able to affix those words on paper, such an affront is a slap in the face of nature.
What doesn’t surprise me is that the editor of the Miami Herald printed this article, since the article was written solely for the sake of publicity. Cote doesn’t believe what he wrote, no human who has seen a hockey game and seen McDavid play could believe that, he wrote it for publicity and no article has ever done a better job for Cote. Frankly it’s a cheap and easy way of getting publicity, especially if you don’t consider being clueless about a topic a roadblock to writing about that topic. One hates to even breathe life into such a nonsensical opinion by writing about it, but it is probably better to refute it and to take the opportunity to remind everyone just how good McDavid is, so here we go.
What defines generational?
The first falsehood that I would like to address is that McDavid should not be called generational. 20 years would be considered a normal, perhaps even generous, length of time for a generation. Here are the top ten all time PPG (that’s points per game, not power play goals, in case you’re reading Cote) players:
| Wayne Gretzky | 1.92 |
| Mario Lemieux | 1.88 |
| Connor McDavid | 1.52 |
| Mike Bossy | 1.50 |
| Bobby Orr | 1.39 |
| Marcel Dionne | 1.31 |
| Peter Stastny | 1.27 |
| Sidney Crosby | 1.25 |
| Peter Forsberg | 1.25 |
| Kent Nilsson | 1.24 |
As you can see, McDavid sits third on the all time PPG list, and the only player to be born within 20 years of McDavid is Sidney Crosby. Another thing you may have noticed is that all these players except Crosby and Peter Forsberg played significant time in the ‘70s and ‘80s, a period of time when the total goals scored per game was hugely inflated. Without getting into a deep comparison of how McDavid would do in the ‘80s, I think it’s safe to say that McDavid would have a great deal more points than he does now.
Now I know points are not important to Cote but I’m honestly not sure what he thinks wins hockey games. Instead Mr. Cote is looking for leadership. Never having won a Stanley Cup myself I’m not exactly sure how it goes, but I don’t think you just give a rousing speech and your teammates go out and each score a hat trick.
At the current rate, if McDavid plays ten more years he will end his career with an astounding 2228 points, which would still be second to the Great One but would be a full 307 points higher than the second place Jaromir Jagr. It is likely that McDavid will slow down at some point but if he plays ten more years he only needs to score an average of 94 points per year to be the second all time points scorer. He blows by that total every year and is likely to play more than ten years. If McDavid isn’t generational, then the only generational player to ever exist is Wayne Gretzky.
The championship argument
An argument I’ve heard more and more recently in all sports is that a player can’t be great without winning a decent amount of championships. This argument may hold water if you’re talking about a players legacy, but certainly not if you’re talking about how good a player is. By that logic Pat Maroon would be a truly outstanding NHL player, having won three Stanley Cups, in three years no less. Nothing against Maroon but it would be difficult to say he is a great NHL player. John Stockton is the all time NBA assists leader and he never won a championship—are you honestly going to say that he wasn’t a great player? That he was overrated? That he wasn’t generational?
Hockey is arguably the most team-based sport played in the world, a single player like McDavid is not on the ice for 70% of the game and yet he is expected to just will his team to greatness from afar. No offense to the Oilers behind McDavid, they are a good team with a top five player and solid supporting players, but they would be the least deep team to win the Stanley Cup in a long long time.
What’s more is that it’s nonsense to talk about championships while a player is still playing; McDavid could still win 10 championships straight.
For love of the game
Not knowing much about Cote, I won’t sully his name with any serious accusations, but I can relate how he is being viewed by the hockey world. At first glance, and based on this asinine take, it would be very easy to label him a brand new Florida Panthers and hockey fan, only taking interest in the Panthers in the last five to ten years or so that they have been a force to reckon with. It would be very easy to say that he has not watched enough hockey to make a claim like this, and that the only ice he has ever seen is in his freezer.
The reason that McDavid is never accused of being overrated in the media is that anyone who truly loves hockey, no matter which team they cheer for, recognizes that McDavid is one of the greatest hockey players of all time—maybe the greatest player ever in raw skill.
Even more powerful than this, and overshadowing the desire to rank and compare incessantly, is the love every true hockey fan feels watching him play because of what he is capable of, because of the hockey plays he makes, simply because of the way he plays the game. If you don’t feel this way yourself, just keep watching and playing hockey, eventually you’ll understand.
Photo by Melissa Tamez/Icon Sportswire
