All Connor McDavid Needs Is a Stanley Cup to Enter the Pantheon of Greats
This question is an easy one for the staff’s resident Oilers fanatic.
Yes. Yes. A thousand times yes. But with a caveat.
Given his accomplishments to this point, McDavid will certainly be remembered as one of the game’s all-time great talents even if he were to walk into general manager Ken Holland’s office today and announce his retirement.
Still, such a conversation is unlikely, regardless of how much fans in Calgary might want that.
But if No. 97 wants to level up to chiseled granite status alongside Gretzky, Howe and Orr, it’ll take at least one more piece of hardware on a mantel crammed with Hart and Art Ross Trophies.
The Stanley Cup.
Rightly or wrongly, there’s a hierarchy of great players in every sport that begins and ends with their championship status. If you put up numbers but never got a ring, you’re not privy to the conversations had among those who cradled a trophy or, in hockey’s case, hoisted a chalice.
If McDavid continued along his merry way and adds more scoring titles and individual accolades, terrific. But unless he puts the team on his back and gets it through the 16-game gauntlet come late spring and early summer, it won’t be the same. And it’s a particular reality in Edmonton, where Gretzky, Messier, Coffey, Fuhr and other greats backed up their Hall of Fame statuses with a fistful of rings. McDavid need not win four or five to warrant inclusion in their company and on the sport’s mountain of legends, but he’s got to get at least one.
—Lyle Fitzsimmons
A Mount Rushmore for Every Generation
There is no doubt whatsoever that Connor McDavid deserves to be on the NHL’s iteration of Mount Rushmore…but there’s a catch: It’s among players of the latest generation.
The biggest argument involved in picking four players as the all-time best to represent the sport is the eras were all so different. Can you appropriately compare the likes of Rocket Richard to Alex Ovechkin? Wayne Gretzky to Sidney Crosby? Bobby Orr to Nicklas Lidstrom? Jacques Plante to Patrick Roy? Not a chance.
The differences in how the game was played, the talent level, the number of teams, the technological improvements to equipment over the decades and even the rules are all so different.
Even in the past 20 years, there have been huge changes, so that even comparing the likes of Mario Lemieux to Nathan MacKinnon would result in more qualifiers and exceptions to make the argument worthwhile. Having a Mount Rushmore that best depicts each era is what makes most sense and doesn’t shortchange a player for being the best during a different time.
Get the hammer and chisel out because McDavid should be on the post-lockout era (since 2005-06) NHL’s Mount Rushmore along with Crosby, Ovechkin—and take your pick between Patrick Kane, Evgeni Malkin, Lidstrom, Martin Brodeur, Henrik Lundqvist…and so many others.
The best of the best deserve recognition, but not every hockey great was built the same or had the same advantages or disadvantages. Judging them as if they did hurts everyone’s case.
—Joe Yerdon
McDavid is Great, But He's Not There Yet
This needs to be said before answering the question: Connor McDavid is a gosh-darn cheat code.
He's the best player in the NHL, bar none. You can have your Nathan MacKinnons, your Cale Makars and Igor Shesterkins—I'm taking No. 97 to start my franchise. The numbers and accolades are insane: 697 points in 487 games, two Hart Trophies and five All-Star Game selections. You're not getting much better than that.
But we're talking Mount Rushmore...the ultimate of ultimates in any sport. The bar is set at the highest level you can possibly imagine, and it's hard to make the case for McDavid at the moment.
Unquestionably, Wayne Gretzky and Gordie Howe, just basing it off sheer numbers, make it. When you record 2,857 and 1,850 career points, respectively, you have a solid case to be revered as a hockey deity.
Mario Lemieux might have gotten closer to Gretzky's all-time number were his career not shortened by injuries. Jaromir Jagr had an incredible career and would have improved on his 1,921-point career were it not for the NHL's various work stoppages throughout his career. Mark Messier won six Stanley Cups, Nik Lidstrom might be the best defenseman ever, and we haven't even mentioned modern-day contemporaries like Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin.
Get the picture?
It's asking a lot from the 25-year-old to reach those lofty levels, and to Lyle's point, you've got to win Cups to even have consideration for the list. The Oilers captain just doesn't have the credentials yet.
—Lucky Ngamwajasat