Monday night was bittersweet for Edmonton Oilers star Connor McDavid. His team lost in Game 7 to the Florida Panthers, falling short of a historic comeback in the Stanley Cup Finals. But, his stellar performance was recognized.
After the game, it was announced that Connor McDavid had won the Conn Smythe Trophy. That award is given to the MVP of the playoffs, something that a player on the losing team rarely achieves.
It is even rarer for a skater on the losing team to receive the award. He is only the second player to do so after Reggie Leach of the Philadelphia Flyers won MVP in 1976. In the other four instances, a player from the losing team won, it has been the goaltender taking home the award.
When his name was announced in front of the home crowd in Sunrise, Florida, boos rained down from the crowd. McDavid had already gone back to the Edmonton Oilers locker room and did not come back out to receive the award.
“Yeah, obviously, I guess it’s an honor. With the names on that trophy. But … yeah,” he said.
It is easy to understand that response from Connor McDavid. It is quite an honor to receive the MVP award, but it wasn’t the trophy he wanted. 100 out of 100 times he would trade that in to hoist the Stanley Cup with his teammates.
However, his production during the postseason did warrant the recognition that comes with winning the MVP award. His 42 points scored in the postseason are the fourth most in NHL history. 47 and 45 by Wayne Gretzky and 44 by Mario Lemieux are the only higher ones.
Connor McDavid recorded 11 points in the Stanley Cup Finals, falling just two short of Gretzky’s record. As part of pushing the Edmonton Oilers back into the series, he recorded back-to-back four-point games, becoming the first player in NHL history to do that in the finals.
He had a record-setting performance, registering 34 assists and breaking the record previously held by Gretzky with 31. That gave him 134 total assists on the season, which is only the 10th time a player has reached the 125-assist mark. The other nine were all done by Gretzky.
“Proud of the way we fought all year. Behind the eight ball almost immediately. We fought an uphill climb for months and months and months,” McDavid said. “[This] just … sucks.”
Connor McDavid had a great 2023-24 season and it was capped off with the prestigious Conn Smythe Trophy. But it is hard to fully embrace winning such an award when it comes without the Edmonton Oilers winning the Stanley Cup.
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