Connor McDavid Is (Probably) Not As Unselfish As You Think

By all accounts, Connor McDavid is a Nice Guy. He says all the right things at all the right times, and doesn’t like to ruffle any feathers.

He’s a Good Teammate, and would never throw anyone under the bus (at least not in public). He’s media-friendly, involved in the community and has once again put Edmonton on most hockey maps (except over at NBC, for some reason)

He’s going to become the face of the league (once the NHL realizes that Patrick Kane isn’t it), and is most likely going to be the best player to have played the game other than Wayne Gretzky (and Sidney Crosby).

He’s sublimely talented, and most people (even the 200 hockey men that Mark Spector knows) can agree that had Connor asked for the league max, he’d have gotten it.

As we now know he didn’t get the league max, but took $12.5 million per year over an 8 year term. (For the math-impaired, that’s $100 million. To play hockey.)

Much has been made about what kind of extension he’d take, and whether or not signing both Connor and Leon Draisaitl is manageable. It is, but maybe not for 7 years. There are some other contracts (see Lucic, Milan and Russell, Kris) that complicate things in this situation. With the Oilers having committed $10m per year to those two guys, it’s no wonder that there’s a bit of consternation around the fanbase about whether or not the Oilers can afford Leon Draisaitl at $8m+ per year.

So when the news broke yesterday that Connor was perhaps uncomfortable with the $13.25m, people automatically assumed that the leftover money could be used for Leon Draisaitl. There’s a prevailing opinion on Twitter (and within the MSM) that Connor took a discount (down to $12.5m from his reported $13.25m ask) for the good of the team, and this makes him both unselfish and the Best Teammate Ever.

Here’s why he’s not:

• Connor McDavid is the best player the Oilers have had since Wayne Gretzky, and he should be paid better than everyone else. $12.5m is more money than most people will earn in a lifetime, and he’s going to do that from October to April. Eight times. Because he’s good at a child’s game.
• While he says that he’s blessed to be able to play the game he loves and get paid well for it, he also says that he’d play for free. Signing a $100m contract sort of contradicts that.
• McDavid leaving money on the table (as he more than certainly did) doesn’t make him a good teammate – it just makes him honest. He said that he wants to win here and to do so he needs good teammates. As a former CHL Scholastic Player of the Year, Connor’s no dummy, and he knows that if he legitimately wants to win a Stanley Cup, he needs more than just Kris Russell on the back end and Milan Lucic on his wing to get there.
• The narrative that he was “uncomfortable” with the price tag is nice, but smart money would say that he took the discount because Darryl Katz (through Peter Chiarelli) promised him something in return. A movie role, perhaps?

At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter WHY Connor only took $12.5m per year and why fans feel that’s a steal. What matters is that he wants to play in Edmonton and bring a Stanley Cup to Rogers Place. However, if he doesn’t by, say, 2020….all this handwringing might have been for nothing anyway.