Teemu Selanne:

“how good Connor McDavidHis body language says he’s ready to win matches alone if needed. Definitely the best player on this planet.”

Calgary Coach Darryl Sutter:

“The best team won the series? The best player won the series!

Connor McDavid deserved such wild criticism at the end of Game 5 of the series against Calgary: in 5 minutes of extra time, the Oilers captain scored a historic goal and helped Edmonton reach the conference finals for the first time in 16 years.

For Connor, that puck was number 26 of the current playoffs – along with his connecting partner in the person of Leon Draisaitl, the Oilers’ number 97 shares the top spot on the league’s top scorers list. And as the end of the Stanley Cup draws near, the talk more clearly heard about the most prolific player in the playoffs. Over the last 2 years it has been Tampa Star and two-time Stanley Cup winner Nikita Kucherov. And in the 2019/20 season, if the student of the Polar Bears school scored a victory on the flag and beat his teammate Braden Point by just 1 point, then last year his advantage was total: he had 32 points on his Kucha account, and his closest follower 23 against the same Point scored a point.

It all goes to the fact that this year our compatriot’s reign of bombing will come to an end. Lightning’s number 86 currently has 15 points in 11 games, 11 points behind top seeded McDavid. We can say that even such an important difference is not a sentence for Kucherov, who can score 3 or more points in some matches. But we mustn’t forget who the Russian forward is dealing with: Connor scored just two (!) less than 2 points per game this playoff. In a streak with 2 or more points, he could even break Wayne Gretzky’s record – The Big at once scored so many points in 8 consecutive games, and the Oilers’ 97th number stood in 7 meetings. Still, McDavid has reason to be proud: he’s become the first regular season top scorer to play in conference finals in 11 years. And that fact proves once again that Edmonton has a special season this season: Connor has managed to shift his regular season success to the playoffs.

However, the future prospects for the Oilers in general and McDee in particular are very uncertain. In the conference finals, 6 seconds before the end of regular time for Game 6, St. The mighty Colorado awaits them, having won a series victory with Louis. And here Connor may already face much stronger resistance – no matter what anyone says, and Avalanche has a much better casting than Calgary. But regardless, despite the worst case scenario for the Oilers, McDavid has at least 4 games in reserve. And if he retains his old score, he will easily replace 30 points and approach Kucherov’s performance in previous years.

Will Kuch be able to catch up with him in this situation? It makes sense that Nikita’s individual performance is directly tied to team success. And if Edmonton’s victory over mighty Colorado is hard to believe, Tampa has every chance to tackle the Carolinas or the Rangers. If Lightning makes it to the Stanley Cup Finals, she has a chance to beat our star compatriot McDavid and become the top scorer in the playoffs for the third consecutive year.

A closer look at the Tampa and Edmonton rosters reveals another advantage of Lightning 86 in the Stanley Cup scoring battle: John Cooper’s team has a much more balanced player pool. If the Oilers’ main offensive force is concentrated in McDavid and Draisaitl’s bars, Tampa has Kucherov, Stamkos, Point (not that he could make it to the playoffs due to injury), Palat and Perry. And on the show with Florida, Nick Paul hit it off unexpectedly. Therefore, personal custody won’t work in the current champion case – if you turn one off, the other will fire. On the other hand, Edmonton’s opponents know full well where the real threat and danger comes from, but that doesn’t stop McD from dominating every game and achieving victories for his club.

Russian hockey players have been the top scorers in 4 of the last 5 playoff draws. Evgeni Malkin (in 2017) and Evgeni Kuznetsov (2018) took the title once, and Nikita Kucherov finished twice as the top scorer of the Stanley Cup (2020 and 2021). But the world’s best hockey player can stop our guys’ hegemony – McDavid is having an outstanding season and paved the way for Edmonton’s Stanley Cup. And how long the Oilers’ road will take, we’ll find out in the very near future.