Edmonton Oilers: Connor McDavid vents frustration after lost season
The Edmonton Oilers have found a way to waste yet another year of captain Connor McDavid’s prime. He voiced his frustrations in a recent interview.
In the NHL, the name of the game is winning games. Positive results are expected, especially when you have somebody as talented as Connor McDavid. Despite having a generational talent like him, the Edmonton Oilers will miss the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the third time in his four-year career. Even if you want to be generous and exclude McDavid’s rookie season, during which he was injured for roughly half the season, the Oilers have only made it once in three seasons.
All the losing in Edmonton has understandably made McDavid very frustrated. He displayed his agony in a recent interview.
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“[My frustration level is] really high. It’s really, really high,” McDavid said, via Sportsnet. “We want to play in the playoffs as a team. I personally want to play in the playoffs… It’s going to be a long summer.”
The bar has been set by the Washington Capitals and the Pittsburgh Penguins. When the former drafted Alex Ovechkin in 2004, they were a playoff team by the end of his third season. Meanwhile, the Penguins were a playoff team by the end of Sidney Crosby‘s second season. And once they both made the playoffs in 2007-08, there wasn’t a postseason without both teams in it until 2013-14.
What happened when the Capitals and Penguins didn’t have success with Ovechkin and Crosby, respectively? Any time either team didn’t get to at least 100 points in a season, they either fired their head coach after the season or the head coach was fired during the next season.
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When the Capitals failed to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs in 2013-14, the Caps cleaned house. Head coach Adam Oates and General Manager George McPhee were shown the door. Losing was seen as unacceptable. Yet in Edmonton, it’s seen as the norm.
McDavid is the last person who should be blamed for the Oilers struggles. He was billed as a generational superstar before he was drafted in 2015 and, if anything, he has surpassed those expectations.
He is second in the NHL in points with 115 and fifth in goals with 41. The former is a career high and the latter is tied with his previous career high set last season.
Barring something unforeseen, this will be McDavid’s first full season he hasn’t won the Art Ross Trophy as the NHL’s leader in points. All it took to unseat him as the two-time reigning champion was Nikita Kucherov having arguably the best season of any player in the salary cap era.
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Oilers fans should be happy to hear McDavid expressing his frustration for two reasons. First of all, he’s going to use this as motivation to get even better. Secondly, and more importantly, this might be what it takes for the Oilers to wake up from their 13 year slumber.
Since making a surprise run to the Stanley Cup Final in 2006, Edmonton has made the playoffs once in 13 seasons. That’s completely unacceptable. But, for some reason, things haven’t changed with the Oilers. They still do business in the same way they have in the past.
Maybe the words of McDavid will give them a reality check. If the captain isn’t happy, there’s no reason the Oilers should be happy. Keep in mind McDavid doesn’t have any form of no-trade protection until the 2022-23 season, when his no-movement clause kicks in.
He’s merely one year into his deal, so any talk of a trade is ludicrous at best, but unless things change, the Oilers might have to say goodbye to another generational superstar. Unlike the Wayne Gretzky trade, Edmonton doesn’t have another one of the five best centers of all-time ready to replace him.
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The Oilers problems lie at the top of the organization, with owner Darryl Katz and CEO Bob Nicholson leading the way. Maybe McDavid’s frustration will finally get that “something in the water in Edmonton” out of the water.