One game down for Connor McDavid, one loss for the Edmonton Oilers.
It goes without saying the team could have used its biggest on-ice presence in Tuesday’s head-to-head against the first-overall Washington Capitals.
But McDavid still has two more to go before the three-game suspension is served for cross-checking Vancouver Canucks forward Conor Garland in the helmet in the dying seconds of Saturday’s fiasco in Rogers Arena on Saturday.
For anyone who still hasn’t seen the ridiculous replay at the end of that 3-2 loss on the West Coast, think mixed martial arts ground and pound, but on skates, as Garland went no-holds barred with the Oilers flat out pressing to even the score.
With 15 seconds left in the third period, the two fell to the ice with Garland underneath, squeezing McDavid’s leg between his own. McDavid got up, but was grabbed around the waist by Garland, who then proceeded to fold the Oilers forward in half and hold him down.
The one-sided melee lasted nearly 10 seconds before McDavid was finally able to rise up and, with no indication of a penalty forthcoming from the officials, took matters — and his stick — into his own hands, making it one-sided no more.
With three seconds remaining, McDavid was given a match penalty to be reviewed by the Department of Player Safety, which then handed down the suspension that left the Oilers without their captain this week, but with plenty of unanswered questions.
Chief among them is, how does the player who leads the NHL this season with one minute and 25 seconds of possession time per game in the offensive zone only sit tied way down in 47th overall with just 14 penalties drawn? Especially after having finished in the top five in that category each of the past four years.
“It feels like as a team we’re drawing less, I feel the numbers would say that, too,” McDavid said Wednesday at Rogers Place, addressing the media for the first time since receiving the suspension. “Just from the eye test or the field test, it feels like our team struggles to get power plays. We get maybe two a night, maybe less. I definitely notice that this year.
“Is that an indication of how much we’re attacking? I don’t know. It feels like we’re attacking a lot. We have the puck a lot, we attack the net a lot, I think we average the second-most shots a game, so we’re obviously going at the net a lot. We have it a lot, you’d think that would result in more penalties drawn and for whatever reason it’s not, so we’ll just keep plugging away. Nothing we can do about it.”
Anyone thinking there has been some sort of officiating conspiracy against McDavid from the beginning hasn’t looked at his numbers.
Since arriving in the league back in 2015-16, McDavid has drawn the most penalties out of anyone, 344 in 688 games played.
No stranger to the penalty box himself, Washington’s Tom Wilson is second on that list with 341 penalties drawn in 651 games, followed by the Boston Bruins’ Brad Marchand (338 in 699 games) in third, the Calgary Flames’ Nazem Kadri (337 in 696 games) in fourth, Florida Panthers expert agitator Matthew Tkachuk (332 in 632 games) in fifth and Colorado Avalanche superstar Nathan MacKinnon (284 in 692 games) a distant sixth.
“Go back to other sports, the quarterback draws the most penalties, why is that? It’s because he has the ball the most. That’s not anything more than he’s got the ball more than other guys so he draws more penalties,” McDavid said. “In our game, usually if you have the puck you’re going to draw more penalties.
“We have the puck a lot, we attack the net a lot it feels like. It feels like maybe we can draw a couple of more. But, do you want me to say it again? I have a lot of respect for the refs.”
It’s not just McDavid this year. As a team, the Oilers have drawn the 27th most penalties, despite leading the league in shots.
So, the question is why? What’s so different about McDavid and the Oilers this season?
“It’s trying to put a square peg into a round hole,” McDavid said. “It’s not going to add up, I’m not going to make it add up.
“It is what it is, I’m not sure why it’s that way.”
E-mail: [email protected]
On Twitter: @GerryModdejonge