Last night was shaping up to be a beautiful night of hockey, was it not? Bob Cole had called his final game, Leon Draisaitl found a way to score #50 for the Oilers, and it was the final Battle of Alberta for 2018/19.
Then the unthinkable happened early into the 2nd period.
I think that this injury could’ve been avoided 100% and here are a couple of my reasons as to why:
- I hear a lot of people asking why Mark Giordano didn’t “let up” on McDavid. It was game 82 and a meaningless game. So in that same vein, why did Connor have to try and pull that move off at that time of the game? Why did he feel the need to try and score another goal for his team?
Sounds ridiculous, right? Just as a scorer wants to score every chance he/she gets, a defender wants to stop a goal every chance HE/SHE gets. You don’t ask the players to let up nor would you expect them to. Personally, I don’t think it’s in either player’s DNA to EVER give up on a play. That’s character and leadership on display and that’s why they’re the captains of their teams.
- McDavid grabs Giordano’s stick (as he’s done countless times to numerous defenders in his entire hockey career to gain an advantage), but this time I feel like that combined with Giordano colliding with his rear-end causes him to lose balance.
I don’t believe that Giordano intentionally took out McDavid’s legs with a “chop-block” style hit you might see in football.
You really have to wonder what the end result would’ve been had he not grabbed hold of the Flames captain’s stick here…
If we try to break it down using screencaps, it helps a bit but I feel like if you’re still convinced that it was a malicious play by Giordano, you’re probably not going to change your opinion on the matter. Regardless, I’d like to take a gander.
This is the moment that Giordano decides he’s gonna make a leap of faith here. It’s do or die and whatever happens, happens. He’s got a pretty good case to make the play too… From this screen cap.
I think McDavid knows what’s about to happen and leans in to protect the puck, not only by shielding it with his leg but also with his shoulder. This is where he decides grabbing Gio’s stick would also be beneficial to his cause. A mistake that would cost him, in my opinion. 
Now with his opponent’s stick fully gripped in his free hand, Giordano bumps into Connor’s hind quarter and all hell is about to break loose. 
McDavid, still holding onto the stick is now about to go full flight into a steel pipe designed to stop a vulcanized disc of rubber that might reach speeds of 120 MPH.
So, what if instead of bearing down and driving the net, Connor pivots back towards the blue line and gets the shop set up? Is there a different result knowing that Giordano is starfishing into the corner?
Here’s the thing, Giordano didn’t injure McDavid. The collision with the goalpost did. Giordano simply facilitated the injury by poorly executing a desperation play. Did he have to dive for the puck? No, he didn’t, but then we’re getting back to questioning the character of the player. On an odd-man rush, a defender can trust his goalie to take the shooter. On a play where a forward is driving the net, the defender has to be there to do whatever he can to deny the scoring chance.
So should we be mad at the Flames defender for doing something we’d expect Adam Larsson or Darnell Nurse to do in the same scenario? There was no intent to injure on this play nor was it malicious, it was merely the worst possible scenario playing out.
Should we be focusing our attention on the NHL and directing our rage at their inability to provide nets that don’t injure players if there’s a collision of this magnitude?
It’s 2019, do hockey nets really need to be made of steel now? Is there not a material available that is not only strong but lightweight that could withstand the force of a player going 42 km/h going into it?
If there is a silver lining to this, it’s that it happened on the last game of the year and there are a good 5 months of off-season to rehab depending on what the MRI reveals.
McDavid injury not considered serious. They will wait for MRI confirmation, but as of now it looks promising. #Oilers
— Jason Gregor (@JasonGregor) April 7, 2019
I don’t know how you feel, but there’s a part of me that doesn’t want the Oilers to release the information. I think everyone has a good idea of what the injury could be but where’s the benefit of making it public? I mean did you know that Mats Zuccarello lost the ability to speak temporarily after sustaining a concussion last year? I didn’t but I might’ve felt different about head-shots and concussions had I known.
L50N
Congratulations to Leon Draisaitl for scoring his 50th of the year. I didn’t expect him to put up 50 dingers, I always thought of him as more of a playmaker. But good on our big German! Maybe he’s the winger we’ve been looking for all along and it’s incumbent upon the new GM to build a line around RNH?
2019 NHL DRAFT LOTTERY
Today, the Oilers have the 7th overall pick but by Tuesday night they could be selecting first through third or eighth through tenth. They’ve got a 20.4% chance of jumping up into the top-three and a 6.5% chance at winning the lottery outright and getting the chance to select Patrick Kane v2.0, Jack Hughes.
Nearly every time I’ve launched the lottery sim at Tankathon.com, the Oilers have won a place in the top-three. It’s actually pretty maddening because it’s getting my hopes up. And so for that reason, I’m going to go WAY out on a limb and say the Oilers will NOT be winning the lottery nor will they be selecting 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in Vancouver.
This is not a bad thing. You’d love to have a crack at Hughes (he trains with McDavid in the summer in Toronto) Kakko, or Byram, but there’s no shame in picking top-ten this year. I mean, after Hughes, Kakko, Byram, and Podkolzin, there’s a drop-off but that group from 5-10 is pretty close and then it drops off again.
So who are we looking at from 5-10?
- Alex Turcotte – C – USNTDP: Smaller version of Chris Kreider. He’s a bulldog out there. Hunts the puck like he’s possessed. Will that disregard for personal safety bite him in the ass at the pro level? He’s already had injury problems.
- Trevor Zegras – C – USNTDP: Highly skilled pivot. Drives lines. Lacks intensity and physicality according to some. Needs to add muscle. Might take a bit of time before he’s NHL-ready.
- Matthew Boldy – LW – USNTDP: Best two-way forward in the draft? Is he going to be more Doug Jarvis or Sergei Federov though? Reminds me a bit of Nugent-Hopkins.
- Kirby Dach – C – Saskatoon (WHL): Ryan Getzlaf with less bite. Can slow down a game to his speed and has no problems making highlight reel passes. Slightly inconsistent during the regular season mind you.
- Dylan Cozens – C – Lethbridge (WHL): Jeff Carter-like ability to dominate games. Has a laser of a shot and knows exactly where to go and how best to get there at both ends of the ice, but what happened in the playoffs this year?
- Peyton Krebs – LW – Kootenay (WHL): A better version of Sam Bennett. Highly intelligent and skilled junior player. The best player on a poor team. Not a smooth operator to me though. His movements seem forced and they lack fluidity.
Who’s on your list right now if the Oilers are picking in the latter half of the top-ten?
