A mind-boggling comeback has set up NHL’s biggest game in 82 years

No The NHL team has come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a Stanley Cup final since the Toronto Maple Leafs did it against the Detroit Red Wings in April 1942. Now, 82 years later, the Edmonton Oilers can change that history. On Monday night on the edge of the Everglades, the Oilers will take on the Florida Panthers in Game 7 and try to win their fourth consecutive game to win the Cup and become the first Canadian NHL champions since the Montreal Canadiens in 1993. Oilers’ way, the game will most likely be crowned one of the NHL’s greatest of all time – or at least one of the most memorable in the league’s history. And the Oilers captain, a generational talent, will have returned to where his career with the team began.

June 26, 2015 was a Friday and there was a lot of buzz at the BT&T Center in Sunrise, Florida, home (still under a different name) of the Panthers. It was NHL draft night, and the presumed No. 1 pick was an 18-year-old from north Toronto who had supported the Ontario Hockey League for three years and led Canada to a World Junior Championship this past winter. Connor McDavid had played at a different level all his life, was allowed to skate with the nine-year-olds at the age of six and was given ‘exceptional status’ at the age of 15 to go to the OHL, a year earlier, where he played the most decorated player in the league’s history.

The Oilers, on the other hand, had another dismal season. They had finished second to last in the Western Conference. By 2015, the Oilers had become something of a perennial draft joke. The team finished first overall in 2010, 2011 and 2012, seventh overall in 2013, and third overall again in 2013 – each of which was a reflection of Edmonton’s poor performance. No matter how many top draft picks the Oilers added to the roster, they consistently found themselves at or near the bottom of the league. But then there was McDavid. Could he finally be the answer?

“I think my expectations exceed anything anyone else expects of me,” McDavid told the Globe and Mail after the Oilers selected him first overall. “I just have to make sure I play my game. If I meet my expectations, chances are I will meet those of others as well.”

Those expectations were very high. Dubbed the Oilers’ savior, he was nicknamed “McJesus” – a nickname that stuck thanks to his godlike moves on the ice and his eye-catching reel goals. But a savior carries the burden of a people, and McDavid has shouldered Oilers history since draft day. The history of the team’s cup wins in the 1980s, the loss in 2006 and the many bad years that followed. Let alone the yoke of a man named Wayne Gretzky.

McDavid walked into what was, on paper, a talented locker room. Thanks to the top roster spots in previous years, the Oilers could boast guys like Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Darnell Nurse and the guy they picked the year before, Leon Draisaitl. But the Oilers were “a mismanaged collection of young stars who can’t burn any hotter than the dumpster fire that consumes them,” according to one NHL columnist. sneered a few months before McDavid was drafted. It didn’t click right away. The Oilers made the playoffs just once over the next four seasons, finishing at the bottom of the division every other year. They were knocked out of the postseason in the 2020 qualifying round and exited the first round the following year. A loss in the Western Conference Final followed in 2021-2022, and they were pushed into the second round last season. Yet during that time, McDavid cemented his status as one of the greats. For example, his seven consecutive 100-point seasons before the age of 28 put him in the conversation of not only Gretzky but also Mario Lemieux. But his success turned expectations into questions. As good as McDavid was, he could do that ever win a Cup in Edmonton? Could he ever match Gretzky’s greatness? And what was missing from this talented team? Was it goaltending? Defense? Were they cursed from above? Or was it the city itselfunable to attract the kind of players the team needed for a championship?

A few months before McDavid was drafted, Edmonton was selected in an NHL player poll as the least desirable city to call home. Edmonton, the NHL’s northernmost outpost, has been a working-class city experiencing a commodity price boom since the discovery of oil nearby in the 1940s. It prides itself on its gruff, transgressive attitude. But it’s not always the easiest place to be. When McDavid came to town, Edmonton’s unemployment rate amounted to 5.4%; during the pandemic it was 15.6% and is now just under 7%. The city is in battle a historic homelessness crisis And a street drug epidemic. But like his team, Edmonton may be down, but not out. And the Oilers are doing their part: the team’s first three rounds generated a estimated CAD$179 million in economic activity for the city.

The Oilers played their final home game of the 2023-24 season on Friday to never-ending crowd cheers — the sound of a city that perhaps needed some hope. They’ll be back in Florida on Monday night, where they’ll delve into history – that of their team, that of the ’42 Leafs, and that of a country desperate to see the Cup return to its homeland for the first time. over 30 years. All these expectations could prove too high for the Oilers, although there is enough pressure on the Panthers to avoid a crushing capitulation after a first Stanley Cup title seemed all but theirs ten days ago. It may be that the only Gretzky performance that McDavid surpasses this year is the Great One’s. points total after the season, something that in itself seemed impossible. But then again, what’s another miracle? The impossible is what McDavid does.