The unstoppable, indispensable Connor McDavid reaches the Stanley Cup Final. Don’t blink

EDMONTON — You are Miro Heiskanen. You are one of the best defenders in the world. And not that modern breed of “defenseman” who is essentially a fourth forward on the ice and gets most of his Norris Trophy votes in the offensive zone. You’re a defense guy. You play defense, man. Better than probably all but a handful of guys alive today. You know what you’re doing there.

So when you see Connor McDavid at the top taking a pass from Leon Draisaitl, prepare accordingly. You know his speed. You know his shot. You know his creativity. And as he blows past Sam Steel – a very good penalty killer, mind you – on the outside by simply running through a helpless stick check, you start turning to the outside. McDavid goes wide to attack the net from the side. Maybe he tries to stuff it in the corner, maybe he tries to drive around the cage and make a wrap, maybe he tries one of those reverse VH breaking, sharp roof jobs that are all all the rage. recently. But he goes wide.

There’s no other way for him to go, right?

Suddenly McDavid stops on a dime and it’s already over. You’re toast. You have to turn your neck 90 degrees to the left to see the man, and all you see is a blue-orange blur disappearing from your peripheral vision. You stick your butt out in a vain attempt to throw him off balance, but he’s already withdrawn the puck and dragged it all the way across your body, making his way like a seasoned caver through an impossibly narrow path between you and Steel . , which is still hopelessly trying to catch up.

Read The Athletic’s full Stanley Cup Final preview.

By the time you turn your head and offer a desperate one-handed waving stick to the spot you think – guess what? heap? – McDavid could be that, the puck is already in the net, because McDavid has somehow placed the puck over Jake Oettinger’s left shoulder with pinpoint precision – without lowering himself into the goal – with a scooping maneuver. No wrist shot. No clean backhand in open space. No chore. A shovel. The guy looked like he was mucking out a stall in Belmont, and he still made a perfect, unstoppable, incredible shot.

By the time you turn all the way around, all you can do is slump your shoulders and then half-heartedly shrug them as you and Steel, Esa Lindell and Wyatt Johnston hang around the crease wordlessly exchanging blank looks, as if to say, ‘What is what the hell happened?’

Just gross, tbh 😤 pic.twitter.com/KRcj2GF3El

— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) June 3, 2024

“I tried to get to the middle of the rink, and that was the best way I thought possible,” McDavid said with a literal shrug.

Yes. Ho-hum.

McDavid added a delicate saucer to set up Zach Hyman’s power-play goal later in the first period. That was enough for a 2-1 win in Game 6, which sent the Dallas Stars home. This is how you win a game in which you have a 35-10 lead, a record low number of shots and a record high shot differential for a series clincher. Here’s how to beat consecutive division champions to reach the Stanley Cup Final. This brings you one step closer to living up to the impossible hype that accompanied you to the competition almost a decade ago. Well, that and a penalty that has somehow wiped out 28 straight power plays, and a goaltender in Stuart Skinner who is playing way above expectations, and a first-year coach in Kris Knoblauch who has pushed all the right buttons, and yet one of the five has best players in the world in Draisaitl on the same power play unit as you, and, well, okay. The Edmonton Oilers have a lot to offer.

But every team has a lot to offer this time of year. But they don’t have McDavid. Nobody does. No one has ever done that. And finally, after nine seasons of this human highlight GIF that toils in the relative obscurity of Northern Alberta – pretty much as far removed from American prime-time television as possible, thanks to a general lack of vision from American rights holders – McDavid may fly and dodge in front of the largest possible audience.

He earned it, and the hockey world deserves it. We all deserve to see the best on the biggest stage.

The best ever? Hockey protocol dictates that a Stanley Cup is a requirement for participation in that conversation, so we may have to wait a few weeks. Or, you know what, maybe we don’t. Look, there’s always a recency bias in the game, but look at what an NHL goaltender looked like in the early 1980s, all 6 feet tall, playing that awkward stand-up style with skinny little pads. Imagine what this McDavid would do against those goalies, against all the pylons that used to populate the league. Sure, he’d be headhunted every night by the fourth-tier villains that roamed the hockey world like plodding dinosaurs, but could they even get within a neutral zone of the man?

It feels extremely hyperbolic to say that no one else in the history of the game could have scored that goal that way, but hey, is that true? Why do we always feel compelled to check ourselves, to qualify, to sit on the couch, to waffle, to sit down? This is a talent we’ve never seen before, doing things we never thought possible. It’s hockey heresy to say McDavid is the greatest hockey player who ever lived, because it’s hockey heresy to say he’s even the greatest Edmonton Oiler who ever lived. Wayne Gretzky was the most dominant athlete in the history of North American team sports. Point. One of one. The greatest career ever.

But could he? That?

Can we at least acknowledge that McDavid is the most talented, the most gifted, and the most breathtaking hockey player who ever lived? That’s not hyperbolic. That is obvious. That’s right in front of us. Say it out loud. Acknowledge it. Embrace it. Celebrate it. What a time to be a hockey fan. What a time to be alive.

“That was fun – I’ve seen it before, but fun,” Draisaitl deadpanned as hundreds of delirious fans chanted “We want the Cup!” chanted. the shaking of the windows looking from 104 Avenue into the Oilers’ press conference room at Rogers Place. “There is one player in the world who can make such things happen.”

A player. One player in this game. In this competition. In this world. Maybe in the history of this sport.

The biggest stage awaits you, and it will be a must-see. It’s always like that with McDavid.

(Photo: Andy Devlin/NHLI via Getty Images)