Connor McDavid can cement legacy as all-time great if Oilers finish off historic comeback

It’s a rare thing to know you are watching history as it unfolds, but that is what’s happening with this Stanley Cup Final.

Game 6 was not about Connor McDavid on Friday night when the Oilers defeated the Panthers, 5-1, on home ice to send this series back to South Florida, but Monday’s Game 7 sure will be. This is about writing a legacy, and McDavid has a pen in his hand.

After scoring eight points over the previous two games, No. 97 was held without one in Game 6 when Warren Foegele, Adam Henrique and Zach Hyman gave the Oilers the goals they needed, then Ryan McLeod and Darnell Nurse added empty-netters. McDavid did not even have a shot on net during this fairytale night in Edmonton.

But McDavid, who has been tipped as the likely Conn Smythe Trophy winner no matter what happens Monday, is this generation’s greatest player, with a chance to lead his team to what would be the greatest feat any team has pulled off in the sport’s modern age.

McDavid’s 42 points in these playoffs, with one game to go, trails only Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky on the all-time list. It is hard to comprehend the enormity of what this will mean for McDavid’s place in history, and for the sport as a whole, if the Oilers pull off another victory Monday in Sunrise, Fla., to successfully overturn a 3-0 series deficit.

He is driving the bus here, and as if you needed more confirmation, he was among Edmonton’s leaders in nearly every analytic metric Friday. But expected goals don’t tell this story.

To understand what this means, look at the scene around Rogers Place on Friday night. Read about McDavid’s connection with Ben Stelter, a young child with glioblastoma who befriended McDavid before dying in August 2022. Understand this is something spiritual for a city that has not won a Cup since 1990, where the Oilers are the only show in town. Understand this is happening in the most astonishing way imaginable, that it is unlikely to happen like this again in anyone’s lifetime and that McDavid is the talisman for the whole shebang.

The last team to overturn a 3-0 deficit and win a Stanley Cup Final was the 1942 Maple Leafs. That’s the only time any team has ever done it, in any major sport, in a championship series.

“Honestly, we’re just having fun,” McDavid told Sportsnet after the game. “We really believe. We believe in each other, we believe in this group and we’re having fun with it.”

Panthers coach Paul Maurice said before Game 6 that some pressure had shifted to the Oilers now that their path to the Stanley Cup was more clear. That was proven completely false within 20 minutes of play Friday night.

Florida played with the weight of the world on its shoulders. The physical dominance the Panthers demonstrated against the Rangers during the conference final, and in the first three games of this series, was completely gone. Maurice lost his cool over a second-period goal being waved off because Sam Reinhart was offside by this much. It was the sort of break that goes against a team when everything is going against a team.

The Oilers rode the home crowd. They rode the hot goalie, as Stuart Skinner finished with 20 saves and outplayed the suddenly vulnerable Sergei Bobrovsky. They rode a penalty kill that has been lights-out all playoffs. Imagine how they must feel.

“This is what we’ve all played for for our whole lives,” forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins told reporters. “An opportunity like this. … A dream come true to be in this position.”

The Panthers are not going to go down easy Monday. The Oilers will need McDavid to rise to the occasion, the way the best player in the world is supposed to do. They will need Leon Draisaitl to produce after he failed to score for the first six games of the series, though his pass to spring Foegele for the opening goal Friday was a good start. Everything that makes this moment so special also creates immense pressure to finish the job.

“Who you are tonight,” Maurice said, “means nothing to who you’re gonna be two days from now.”

That’s the emotional side. There’s an economic one, too.

American networks have been reluctant to embrace the Oilers as a national draw. ESPN notably didn’t have a crew covering the all-Canadian second round between Edmonton and Vancouver in-person. There was requisite groaning about a pair of small markets contesting a Stanley Cup Final.

No matter what happens Monday, if the league can’t sell McDavid and the Oilers to Americans now — if networks are still reluctant to haul up to Northern Alberta — then fire the marketing team.

This series has produced the best story in sports right now — the best story the NHL has had in a long, long time. And McDavid is the perfect player to write the ending.