Outside of saying that if you’re not improving, you’re letting people catch up, it’s a fair question to ask a player like Connor McDavid — who is widely regarded as the best hockey player in the world — how do you get better, when you’re already the best? The fastest, perhaps most offensively skilled player in the NHL can only do so much when it comes to exponentially contributing more on offense. That’s probably why he knows his improvements during the 2020-21 NHL season will come on the defensive end.
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This is not to say expectations won’t be high for McDavid. He’s likely going to try to shoot to score 90 points in a 56-game season. Maybe even 100 isn’t out of reach. But, while he maintains his extremely reliable offensive dominance, he’s going to be working on the defensive side of the game.
McDavid spoke with media after the Oilers scrimmage Friday and said, “Yeah. you know offensively, I think I check off most of the boxes there. Defensively is where its at.” He added:
“It’s the little things. It’s the stopping on pucks, it’s winning battles, it’s hounding pucks on the forecheck, getting involved in battles and winning faceoffs.”
McDavid Likes His Progress So Far
McDavid notes he’s been happy seeing what he’s seeing out the Oilers scrimmages so far. He admitted that he’s struggled to figure out Kyle Turris on the faceoff dot, but he finds he’s doing a better job of rounding out his game.
He believes his speed and offensive instincts are always going to be there, he just wants to be “solid all over the ice”. That’s the next thing that’s going to take him another step forward. As far as how he’s going to keep scoring, he said, “This is a smart man’s league. It is difficult to beat guys the same way twice. You always have to work on different ways to attack.” Something tells us he’s going to figure that out pretty quickly.
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