Oilers' McDavid makes Knights' great two-way forward Eichel his latest victim
Connor McDavid turned Jack Eichel inside out on his jailbreak with Leon Draisaitl on the deciding 2-on-1 overtime play in Game 2, but don't be sowing too many gloats.
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McDavid has made Drew Doughty, Morgan Rielly and countless other defencemen look inadequate with his speed and Eichel, while one of the NHL's very best two-way players, who had three earlier assists in the entertaining game, is a centre, not a defenceman.
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'Sometimes Connor McDavid does Connor McDavid things,' said former NHL first-round pick and later Oilers blueliner Chris Joseph, who played 510 NHL games.
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'Jack's done pretty well defending McDavid but he got caught flat-footed like anybody would. Jack did as well as you could do as a forward at that point in the game. And skating backwards? It's not even close (to a defenceman) with their pivots and such,' said Joseph, who came to the Oilers in the fall of '87 along with Craig Simpson for Paul Coffey
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Maybe Eichel should have just tried to tackle 97.
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'Like (Kevin) Bieksa said on the (SportsNet) panel … maybe he would have been better off just taking a penalty. I mean a defenceman doesn't have much choice there either. He's Connor McDavid. Vegas has kept him off the board pretty well in the first two games and Jack Eichel's had a really good series. He's one of the few bright spots for Vegas,' said Joseph.
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But, some excited Oilers fans are pointing out the mismatch.
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'They're fans, they're not rational. They're passionate. Passion and rational don't usually go hand in hand,' laughed Joseph.
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McDavid and Draisaitl have combined for a game-winning goal 110 times in the regular-season and playoffs. That's second-most in NHL history. The Sedins — Henrik and Daniel — did it 159 times with the Canucks. Wayne Gretzky and Jari Kurri (106) and the Islanders Bryan Trottier and Mike Bossy (102) are the only other duos with more than 100 GWG.
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Wires crossed
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Vegas's versatile forward Nic Roy isn't quite in the Lady Byng conversation with 43 penalty minutes in the regular-season, but Roy has little history with violence. So what was he thinking with that cross-check to Oilers winger Trent Frederic's face along the boards, deep in the Oilers end, that got him the major and a game toss in overtime of Game 2?
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Frederic had cotton plugs in his nose as he sat on the bench to stop the bleeding and while the Golden Knights did an excellent job killing off the major, Roy now has a hearing with NHL Player Safety.
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