Tonight is one of those circle the date on the calendar nights.: Connor McDavid will pay a visit to Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Over the years a lot of people have made claims about Crosby passing the “baton… to certain players. All of these have been shortsighted and incorrect, until now. McDavid is now the best player in the sport. He is worthy of receiving this imaginary honor. McDavid has the potential to be better than Crosby as an individual player.
It isn’t his fault he was drafted where he was drafted.
But McDavid being in Edmonton has been a bummer. This is not me taking a shot at the citizens or city of Edmonton. This is me taking a shot at NBC and the Oilers front office. NBC does not like to show Canadian teams on their network. This is problematic considering the league’s best player is on a Canadian team. Tonight is no exception to this rule.
Crosby is going up against McDavid in the Eastern Time Zone and it is not being picked up by NBC to show on NBCSN. Remarkably pathetic. If you want NBCSN will have the powerhouses known as Buffalo and Detroit on instead. NHL gonna NHL. This is Lebron vs. Steph and it is being treated like it’s a Mavericks vs. Kings game.
This league just can’t get out of the way of itself.
Also hurting McDavid are the people who run his team. I have no faith in the Oilers' front office to provide Connor McDavid the best opportunity to find team success. Peter Chiarelli does not deserve the benefit of the doubt and recent choices by this front office have the Oilers in a predicament where they are a win now team instead of a win now and in the future. This is also with McDavid taking a huge discount on his next contract. The $10 million invested in Milan Lucic and Kris Russell is foolish spending and they will never get a proper return on that value. You can’t throw $10 million in cap space away and expect to have flexibility.
McDavid is awesome, and is playing Crosby tonight. It doesn’t happen all that often.
If you happen to have access to this game enjoy it. For those that don’t, F.U. from the NHL.
Thanks for reading!