EDMONTON — Breathe easy, Oil Country.
Connor McDavid may not yet look anything like his usual world-beating self to open these Stanley Cup playoffs, but all indications are that the Edmonton Oilers captain survived an injury scare after spending a few minutes consulting with the team’s medical staff during the second period of Game 2.
McDavid went to the dressing room after his right ankle got yanked in an awkward collision with teammate Mattias Ekholm, triggering a panic-inducing six minutes where it became easy to start imagining this Oilers playoff run going off the rails before it had barely even left the station.
A sigh of relief came with McDavid’s return to the bench, and eventually the ice, even though he appeared to be in some discomfort. But he made it through the rest of Wednesday’s 6-4 loss to the Anaheim Ducks and eased any concerns about his status moving forward when he stepped in front of the cameras afterward.
“Yeah, I just rolled up on it a little bit,” said McDavid. “It’s fine.”
The fact he spoke to reporters at all was an encouraging sign, given that he might otherwise have been seeking additional medical treatment. McDavid walked through the dressing room in bare feet and looked no worse for wear.
With the health concerns eased, the bigger question became obvious: When will the game’s best player make his presence known in this first-round series?
Keeping McDavid off the scoresheet in consecutive playoff games is no small feat. It didn’t happen at all during last year’s run to the Stanley Cup Final. You need to go back to Games 6 and 7 of the 2024 Final against the Florida Panthers to find the most recent instance.
“I think he’s putting a lot of pressure on himself,” said Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch. “Obviously he wants the team to do well. He’s our leader and when we have success he’s a big part of that. There’s stretches during the season that he hasn’t been the best player, there’s some nights he hasn’t been outstanding, (but) it doesn’t happen very often and certainly he’s going to find his game.”
The most obvious place for him to look for it is on the man advantage. The Oilers vaunted power play has yet to strike in this series, going 0-for-6. McDavid generated three of his four shots in Game 2 on the power play.
However, he was also guilty of a terrible turnover that became a back-breaking short-handed goal against — haphazardly throwing the puck to an unoccupied space in his own zone before Alex Killorn skated onto it and fed a shot pass to Ryan Poehling to make it 4-2.
“Just a little bit of a miscommunication,” said McDavid.
He spoke barely above a whisper in a quiet dressing room, but sounded more defiant than defeated.
McDavid found encouragement from the adjustments Edmonton made to their zone entries between Games 1 and 2. They were certainly cleaner in that area. And he noted that the top unit was still working its way back into form after missing Leon Draisaitl and Zach Hyman to injury absences down the stretch.
“As good as the power play is, it’s still a work in progress,” said McDavid. “We haven’t run our normal routes and had our normal routes for some time. It’s not just a light switch, so we’re working at it obviously and we’ll be a part of this series.
“We will be.”
So far Ducks head coach Joel Quenneville has opted against chasing a hard matchup against McDavid at 5-on-5. Incredibly, unheralded center Tim Washe was the Anaheim forward who lined up across from him most during the first two games of the series and the total shots during those 11 minutes ended up at just 3-2 in Edmonton’s favor.
Neither team scored.
“I think you’ve just got to know when you’re on the ice you can face him,” said Quenneville. “Anybody in our lineup in the middle of the game, hey, don’t be surprised when he’s out there and trust that we’re going to be able to get it done. It’s basically everybody on the ice’s responsibility.”
Heading home with the series tied 1-1, the Ducks should take major pride in the job they’ve done against McDavid.
Of course, it’s not something that can be celebrated just yet. The NHL’s six-time scoring champion just feels too inevitable for any opponent to ever get comfortable. And despite forcing some plays in an uncharacteristic manner in the early stages of this series, McDavid hardly seemed rattled by the 0-0-0 stat line beside his name.
“I still thought we got looks,” said McDavid. “I still thought we had chances. Obviously, we’ve got to find a way to score. Yeah, it’ll come.”
History says it’ll happen Friday night when Game 3 of this series goes at Honda Center: McDavid has never gone three straight playoff games without registering a point and he’s now into his eighth playoff season.
“Any time I see Connor do something maybe not at his best, usually it doesn’t last very long,” said Knoblauch. “He usually finds a way to correct it. He usually turns it around.”
