There's Nothing More Automatic In Sports Than McDavid To Draisaitl In Overtime
Codie McLachlan. Getty Images.Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl knew that they'd be back here. The Oilers climbed their way out of a 0-3 hole in the 2024 Stanley Cup Final, only to come up one game short of pulling off the first reverse sweep in Cup Final history. They knew they'd be back in this moment, even if they had to put the entire roster on their backs and carry everybody there themselves.
They went down 0-1 to the Stars in the WCF, and decided it was time to lock into kill mode. They rattled off 4 straight wins to eliminate the Stars. And then just over a minute into game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final, Leon Draisaitl blew the roof off Rogers Place.
It was as good of a start as you could have dreamed for if you're Edmonton. But it was just a start. And before you knew it, the game flipped on its head after Florida scored 2 goals in under 2 minutes to take the lead. Edmonton goes down 3-1, and you're thinking that maybe this Panthers team is just too much of an unstoppable wagon. Maybe there's nobody on the planet who can take down this Florida team. But once the Oilers found a way to tie it up, you knew what that meant.
McDrai Time, baby.
Leon Draisaitl has scored the most career overtime goals in Edmonton Oilers history with 19. Connor McDavid has the most career overtime assists in Edmonton Oilers history with 28. I would imagine that 19 of those 28 assists for McDavid have been finished by the stick of Leon Draisaitl.
I'm not breaking any news here, but Connor McDavid is the best player on the planet. The moment the puck touches his stick in overtime, the defense goes into panic mode. They know how lethal he is, and they know they are in danger. So McDavid gets the puck on his stick down by the goal line, and you have all 4 Florida penalty killers immediately thinking to themselves "oh shit" as they race down to try and stop him. The thing about that is….you are leaving another top 5 player on the planet completely alone in front of the net when all 4 guys rush to McDavid. 97 draws all the eyes, and 29 has that ability to deliver in the biggest moments.
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It's inevitable. It's unstoppable. It's automatic.
At the very least, now the Oilers know they don't have to pull off an impossible reverse sweep to get their hands on the Cup. 1 win down. 3 more to go for destiny. These two are as locked in as possible. Going to be tough to beat them twice in a row at this point.