VORHEES, New Jersey — Zach Hyman left the Edmonton Oilers team watch party after the second period of Thursday’s 4 Nations finale, and watched the rest from the comfort of his Philadelphia hotel room.
The only Oiler in the game — Hyman’s linemate Connor McDavid — had not, to that point, put his stamp on the game for Team Canada. When he finally did, in overtime, there was only one thing for Hyman to do.
“I just laughed,” said Hyman, who had one thought upon seeing McDavid come through in the clutch: “Of course he did.”
“He says he didn’t think he had a very good game. That bar is set pretty high,” Hyman continued. “The best players, that’s what they do. It was Sid in 2010, Connor (Thursday) night. They find the moment — the moment finds them — and then they deliver.”
As the Edmonton Oilers blazed through one final practice before resuming their National Hockey League schedule with a five-game road trip through the Eastern Conference, there was a sense of brotherhood here, that one of theirs had not only sealed the 4 Nations with an overtime goal, but that McDavid had reserved a place in hockey history by scoring a goal that will live on in hockey lore.
If McDavid is going to hold his place among the true greats, along with winning a Stanley Cup or two, goals like the one he scored Thursday in Boston are a prerequisite.
A child prodigy, McDavid was almost predestined for this role. So the fact he scored the game-winner on perhaps his only scoring chance of the game — while others had a few cracks and could not deliver — doesn’t surprise anyone around Edmonton’s travelling party.
“The biggest thing that separates the really good players from the guys that are legends of the game, I think, is the ability to come through in those big moments,” said Oilers GM Stan Bowman. “They’re all great players in the 4 Nations, but the guys that can actually come through in those pressure moments…
“It’s almost like the game slows down for them. They’re able to do things that other guys just can’t seem to do. It’s a really fine line that separates them.”
Somehow, a player who was focussed on so acutely by Team USA’s defensive game plan found open space when it mattered most. When the puck arrived, McDavid buried a puck past the game’s best goaltender, his first and only Grade A opportunity of the game.
“Great play by (Mitch) Marner, Connor gets it, and in one motion, he puts it in the only place where the goalie couldn’t get it. If he misses an inch either way, the goalie saves it or it goes wide,” Bowman said. “To me, that’s what separates the great players from like the legends of the game. It’s those moments — and there’s not a lot of them. Sometimes in a playoff series, there’s only one or two.”
Down the road in Washington, where the Oilers meet the Capitals on Sunday, Caps winger Taylor Raddysh has seen this moment coming for some time.
“I was lucky enough, my brother was with him for a while — minor hockey, OHL — so I’ve kind of seen (McDavid) for a pretty long time,” Raddysh told reporter Stephen Whyno of the Associated Press on Friday. “When you’re with him, it was kind of, any night he can do something that you’ve never seen. He’s been doing it his whole life, and it was cool to see him last night get that big one to put Canada on top.”
“At this point, no, nothing surprises me,” added Capitals centre Dylan Strome, another high-end NHL player who looks at McDavid and marvels. “Sometimes it’s tough in those really, really big moments to find a way to be the guy. He stepped up and made a great play. Great pass by Marner, and it was a great play.”
McDavid wasn’t even happy with his game to that point.
“I was not very good all night,” he told the media in Boston. “All that was going through my mind was: Keep going.”
In Canada and abroad, as the periods rolled by and McDavid had scarcely carried the puck from one zone to another, Canadian fans were wondering: Will this be like Game 7 of last spring’s Stanley Cup Final where, try as he might, McDavid was unable to provide in the big moment?
“My family was texting during the game, and my brother was at the game,” Strome said. “He just said, ‘It just takes one shot, one chance for him.’ He hadn’t really had too many good opportunities to score. When the best player in the world gets the puck in the slot, good things usually happen.”
Good things, or great things.
It’s the difference between good players, and great ones.
