Is mcdavid too good not to win a cup?

If they don’t win by next year he should bounce as a UFA.

So many speculate or bait about McDavid leaving as UFA if the Oilers don't win a cup, but it seems to me that the chance is greater for him to leave if he actually won. He doesn't strike me as a person who'd leave with unfinished business, as it goes against his pride and determination. If he won a cup, however, I could see him having done his duty for the city and feeling more comfortable with moving on. Just a thought.

On the topic of winning "alone": This is hockey. Single players or a combination of a few elite players cannot and will not win the SC. Hockey is not decided by who has the best few players (as in, for example, basketball), but who does not have the worst players. It's depth and bounces that win cups.
 
I would be interested to get his honest thoughts on if he thinks he can get it done in EDM given their cap structure.

Will he take max contract next? Will he take discount? Will he just go to a different team on max contract? Different team on friendly cap hit, etc

Selfishly I'd love to see him on a team in the eastern time zone so I can finally catch some more of his playoff games.
 
So many speculate or bait about McDavid leaving as UFA if the Oilers don't win a cup, but it seems to me that the chance is greater for him to leave if he actually won. He doesn't strike me as a person who'd leave with unfinished business, as it goes against his pride and determination. If he won a cup, however, I could see him having done his duty for the city and feeling more comfortable with moving on. Just a thought.

On the topic of winning "alone": This is hockey. Single players or a combination of a few elite players cannot and will not win the SC. Hockey is not decided by who has the best few players (as in, for example, basketball), but who does not have the worst players. It's depth and bounces that win cups.
Don’t even think you need to factor in pride and determination. With Draisaitl committing long term and his wife trying a new business venture, he’s all but said he’s staying. The odds of him leaving are pretty slim.

McDavid as good as he is, still needs a competent management team to build a cup winning roster around him.
 
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If Gretzky chose to play his entire career with a team that only had fourth line goons, he wouldn't win any cups.

It's a team sport. A single player can drive up a team's performance for deep playoff runs where they wouldn't have gotten nearly as far without that player. But last playoffs is a good example that the team you surround a superstar with matters.

McDavid and Draisaitl went crazy and they were very close to winning it all but they fell short. McDavid can't really do anything about the Oilers not having better defense and goaltending short of taking a massive pay cut when he negotiated his contract but no one expects superstars to do that.
 
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No such thing as too good to win, but he doesn't need as much support as most other players do to win one. As long as the Oilers have McDavid and Drasiaitl, even half azzed management should give him a few more opportunities after this season. It will depend on whether they can get half azzed management or not and there is no guarantee of that.
 
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Can’t win one with Ovy. Oops wrong! Ray Borque will never win one. Nope! Mario is all offense—will never win. Uh uh. Marcel Dionne will never win. Ok, you got one. McDavid has a 25% chance of never winning a cup.
 
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lol, is this a serous thread,

So were Gretzky, Lemieux etc too good to not win?
Yes great players are capable of winning.
 
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It's going to be really hard in the West this year with how stacked the Avs look - even getting past the Kings is going to be really tough with their current health reality.

Even looking long term, the Avs are going no where, the Kings are still relatively young, Utah is coming, the Wild are up and coming too.
 
Carey Price didn't win a cup. Hasek didn't win a cup until signing with a stacked team. If guys who were undisputedly the best player in the entire league for at least a year like those two couldn't do it despite carrying bad teams to the finals, McDavid isn't a lock either. There's two other forwards just as good as he is that have better teams around them. This isn't the NBA.
 
I do think he'll get one but I also think Edmonton is too top heavy in contracts and that will look even worse next year with Draisaitl going up to $14 million and dramatically worse the following year if McDavid re-signs for the $15+ million he is likely to get. That Nurse contract really is an absolute killer.
 
I do think he'll get one but I also think Edmonton is too top heavy in contracts and that will look even worse next year with Draisaitl going up to $14 million and dramatically worse the following year if McDavid re-signs for the $15+ million he is likely to get. That Nurse contract really is an absolute killer.
The Nurse contract is not as consequential with him playing the way he has this season and with the cap going up.

But I agree, filling out depth while having top heavy contracts will always be difficult.
 

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