What can I say? Connor McDavid is something special!
Connor McDavid is a rarity, a player so gifted that he can be compared to the best in the game past and present, and I can say it with a straight face.
He is a prospect so talented, in fact, that even Gretzky tacitly acknowledged the comparison.
Gretzky is remembered by hockey as the Great One, and his exploits in a different era of the game are going to be hard for any individual to match. That hasn’t stopped the hockey world from looking though. McDavid is the latest in a shortlist of players hailed as the Next One, who, along with Mario Lemieux (the Magnificent One and a contemporary of Gretzky’s), received massive attention for years leading up to their draft dates.
How does McDavid really stack up with those players? We can’t know how his career will turn out, but we can compare his performance at the junior level to the performances of Gretzky and Lemieux. Crosby and Eric Lindros, all of whom were hailed as the Next One prior to their respective draft days, are also on that list.
There are those who will be disappointed if McDavid becomes anything less than a candidate for the title of best player in NHL history. Junior numbers are hardly absolutely definitive, but McDavid’s production in these years suggests he’s a step back from the greatest players of all time. He isn’t Gretzky, or Lemieux, or Crosby. Instead, he slides somewhere in between those players and occasional MVP candidates like Lindros and Tavares.
One can make the argument after watching the weekly highlight reel that there are more extremely gifted players than ever before. The young guns putting on a show every night in rinks everywhere will become more of the norm as time goes by. Diet, technology, training methods and the special attention this new breed of athlete get, are bound to have an effect on these individually gifted people.
There’s nothing wrong with comparing Connor McDavid to the greats in the game. It’s what we do as fans. It’s fun to debate and compare and imagine. It’s exciting to watch the evolution of these stars, and however McDavid’s career turns out, it’s a good bet that his star will shine very brightly.
