Crosby vs. McDavid; Sid Made Changes to Win, Can Oilers Avoid Catastrophe?

Max Talbot scored a pair of goals, and then Marc-Andre Fleury made one of the best saves of his career in the final moments of Game 7 of the 2009 Stanley Cup Final. The Pittsburgh Penguins won, Sidney Crosby was able to hoist his first Stanley Cup, and a unique dynasty was set in motion.

So, what would have happened if the vaunted Detroit Red Wings had won that game? Detroit vanquished the upstart Penguins under coach Michael Therrien in the 2008 Stanley Cup Final, only to succumb in 2009 to the Penguins under fresh-faced Dan Bylsma.

However, in the years immediately following that victory, the Penguins appeared to be a one-and-done team as opponents figured out their cryptonite: ego.

Opponents frustrated the Penguins in 2010 with structured and disciplined play. The physical stuff increasingly unnerved and disheveled the Penguins. By 2012, the Philadelphia Flyers were able to beat the Penguins by making them forget hockey and focus on revenge.

By 2015, the Penguins were petulant, soft, and mentally weak, yet they remained one of the most talented teams in the league. By 2015, shortly before the arrival of coach Mike Sullivan, there were loud rumblings that Crosby wasn’t happy with the organization. How could he be? The team had not won anything in years despite a prodigious locker room cast and the game’s greatest player.

That 2009 Stanley Cup championship kept the group together just long enough to fix it.

What if the Penguins entered that phase without the underpinnings of Cup success?

Perhaps we’re about to find out the answer to that question via the Edmonton Oilers and Connor McDavid, who again came so close to the glorious trophy presentation that McDavid desires and his career needs to be fulfilled as one of the all-time greats.

Even before the mighty Florida Panthers broke the will of McDavid and the Oilers in Game 6, the rumblings about McDavid’s future had begun. ESPN’s Steve Levy is far from a bomb thrower, but he openly opined that another loss could open Pandora’s box for McDavid’s future. Since then, serious analysts well beyond the usual cast of characters who profit from the salacious have soberly discussed the possibility.

But every player has their breaking point. If Crosby and the troops had not won the 2009 Cup, would their bonds have crumbled before Sullivan arrived? We absolutely think so. My, how history would have been changed. Who knows where Crosby or Evgeni Malkin or Kris Letang would have wound up by 2015.

And who knows how much former GM Ray Shero could have gotten in that trade? The return is staggering to consider. Perhaps we’ll find out that answer regarding what Crosby would have been worth on the trade market if McDavid waves the white flag and surrenders in the great white north.

Of course, Edmonton GM Stan Bowman could do something radical, like getting a goalie who rises above mediocre and they can run it back a few more times.

No Stanley Cups

I will admit to a small personal bias. I am somewhat protective of Crosby’s legacy. As one of the beat writers who covers the team on a daily basis, at home and on the road, I spend quite a bit of time around the team. Before that, I was a talk show gabber opining about the league in general and all things happening.

While Crosby and this writer have no great relationship to mention, nor a personal connection beyond hockey questions in the locker room, it still falls upon me and this outlet to tell his story. And it’s for those reasons that I take extra care with his legacy. He’s earned that care because no one in the game has worked as hard at being great.

Also, because he’s far too humble to ever push for more individual recognition.

And so it was that Crosby was often underappreciated or downgraded until his 2017 Stanley Cup victory. Make no mistake, despite scoring the Golden Goal in 2010 and bleeding for Team Canada in the Olympics and even the far less prestigious World Championships, there were always enough detractors to deny Crosby the recognition he deserved.

Indeed, Crosby didn’t win over the Canadian hardliners until 2017 when he willed his team to the Stanley Cup with a rough-and-tumble physical brand of hockey highlighted by dribbling P.K. Subban’s head off the ice like a basketball while the pair tangled behind the net.

Crosby had changed his game in those moments to be far more physical and be the leader his team needed. He more resembled Doug Gilmour than Wayne Gretzky, and it made all the difference.

That was the moment Crosby became beloved, not that it mattered to Crosby, for whom individual achievement has always been a distant second to winning. That was also the moment that showed the changes Crosby was willing to make to win.

Little Things, Big Changes

No, the Cup Final losses aren’t on McDavid, and no one should dare pin blame there. Unfortunately, history doesn’t judge fourth-line centers and third-pair defensemen. Nor does the purifying light of hindsight shine upon the supporting cast. It is about the game’s best player and the ultimate result.

If McDavid is to win a Stanley Cup, perhaps he will need to make small changes. In 2016-17, Crosby won only 48% of his faceoffs. It was never his strongest talent, but from then forward, Crosby worked … and worked … at improving his faceoff skills. The following year, he won 53% of his draws. The last two seasons, Crosby has won 57% and 58%, respectively.

No one in the history of the game has won more draws. By comparison, just once in his 10-year career has McDavid won more than 51.9%.

It’s quite true that McDavid has scored at a rate unseen since Mario Lemieux in the 1990s, but the focus of the hockey world is on McDavid in this heated moment not because of his goals or points, but because of his lack of Stanley Cups.

The irony of this conversation is that Crosby wasn’t even on the ice in the third period of that fateful 2009 Game 7 that altered the course of the organization so much for the better. He had been knocked out with a knee injury, and those very same depth players and goaltending carried the team.

No, history doesn’t remember that. It was Sid the Kid lifting the Cup and adding the bonds of cement to what became a championship core with three Cups in eight years.

Alex Ovechkin was merely a goal scorer until he won the Stanley Cup, and he achieved that elevated status by changing swaths of his game. The bullish Russian even learned there weren’t evil monsters hiding on the other side of the blue line in his own zone.

McDavid is now entering that forlorn territory in which we look at great players and great teams without a championship with both pity and humor. Does anyone remember those 1990s Buffalo Bills jokes? No, the FCC was never going to change the Buffalo area code to 0-4-4, but we laughed nonetheless.

Bowman needs to improve a couple of core tenets of his team, especially goaltending, and maybe a little bit more of a reliable defense or defensive concept. However, history won’t judge Bowman nor coach Kris Knoblauch, and neither Eric Bouchard nor even Stuart Skinner as harshly as it will McDavid. He’s a great player, he’s the focal point, and it’s up to him to win, whether that’s fair or not.

The same charges were leveled against Mario Lemieux, too. And Dan Marino. And John Elway.

Perhaps a few more defensive zone takeaways, a few more blocked shots, or face-off wins would make a one-goal difference, which is about all Edmonton needed in 2024. A key goal could have swung the series in 2025, too.

Fairness has no place in history, which is written by the victors. If McDavid is to claim his place among the top five, perhaps ahead of Crosby, he needs to do a few of the things Crosby did and make some changes–then hope those around him do the same.