What makes Connor McDavid so good?

A little backstory

Connor McDavid was born January 13th 1997 in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada. McDavid started skating already at the age of 3 and started playing hockey the next year. McDavid always played with kids that were older than him. At one point his parents lied about his age to get him playing against older kids. When he was 5 years old he was playing with kids up to 9 years old. Hockey Canada granted him ”Exceptional Player” status in 2012 allowing him to enter the OHL (Ontario Hockey League) at the age of 15, a year younger than the league limit. McDavid played with the Erie Otters in the OHL until the summer of 2015 when he was drafted first overall into the NHL by the Edmonton Oilers. After his entry level contract ended, he signed an 8-year contract with the Edmonton Oilers worth 100 million dollars which means that his yearly salary is 12,5 million dollars.

So what makes him so special?

When McDavid is on the ice, everyone is watching. He’s just one of those special players kind of like Michael Jordan or Tom Brady. Even if you’re not a hockey fan, you can sense that he is a special player just by seeing him touch the puck. His skating ability is unbelievable and even deceiving. He takes as many strides as other players but he is twice as fast. His acceleration is like magic and he can just fly past defenders. But that’s not all. His hands match his feet. His puck handling is very quick and sharp but still relaxed. His snap shot is one of the best in the league but you don’t see him clapping Ovechkin-esc one-timers but that’s just not his style. But maybe the most important thing to his game is his mind. McDavid has the ability to predict plays before they even happen. He knows when to rush the puck and when to calm the play. He sees the ice very well and can pass the puck on a dime. You just have to see him play to understand what makes him a generational player.

Perseverance

On April 6th, 2019 in the final game of the regular season against the Calgary Flames, McDavid suffered a bad knee injury. He was charging towards the Flames’ goal and was tripped up by Mark Giordano. His left knee hit the goalpost at over the speed of 40 km/h. For the record the school zone speed limit in Edmonton is 30 km/h so it would be basically illegal for him to skate there. Anyway, the medics came to help McDavid after the collision as he couldn’t stand up. “I think its broken”, people read from his lips while he was talking to the medics on the ice. McDavid was helped off the ice and into the locker room. Turned out that his PCL was torn in half, the back of his knee joint was completely torn, there was a crack in front of his tibia, bone bruising and multiple other tears. The doctors told him that he needed surgery on his PCL which would have caused him to basically learn to skate all over again. There were a couple of other ways to deal with the injury though. One was to try and rehab the knee without surgery and be ready for the next season which started in October. The risk was that the PCL might not heal properly on its own. To make a decision like that at the age of 22 must be frightening. However, McDavid chose the rehab. So with a strict regimen of stabilization and a diet the knee started to get better, and incredibly McDavid was able to rehab his knee in under six months. In the first game of the season McDavid scored the game-winning goal in his usual fashion as his Edmonton Oilers won the game 3-2. So one part of what makes Connor McDavid so good is his perseverance and the will to not give up.

A link to the condensed Finnish version of the text: https://wp1.novida.fi/illusion/2021/01/14/mika-tekee-connor-mcdavidista-niin-hyvan/