Connor McDavid excited about making NHL debut

Here are 5 of the biggest questions that need to be answered this season as we get set to drop the puck on another year of hockey. They were BM – Before McDavid. The team? Not so much. The hockey team had a crane of its own now.

Either way, it’ll be must-see TV when these two are on the ice together, and could lead to a resurgence of the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Eastern Conference if all goes well. The Edmonton Oilers landed in Missouri last night and will be lacing their skates up tonight in their first game vs. the St. Louis Blues.

Except for, perhaps, McDavid himself.

For all his dreams, McDavid got a good night’s sleep on the eve of his big-league debut, and it wasn’t until he woke up in a St. Louis hotel Thursday morning that he let his mind wander.

“I was just trying to get it out of the zone short-handed”, Pietrangelo said.

McDavid has played the whole “under-promise and over-deliver” card to perfection this fall in Edmonton.

“It’s a good place to start”, McDavid said.

Hell, if you find yourself on the outer edges of his media scrum you can’t even hear what he’s saying. “I was able to adjust to that”, said Davidson. “Not the loudest guy”.

The Maple Leafs were an unmitigated disaster last season. That would be presumptuous of making the final roster, something McDavid has been extra careful to not take for granted.

“It’s important to remember he’s 18”, Hall said. Even shrugged the same way. He had to be the guy all the time up until now. He’s seen them come, one after the next – Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Nail Yakupov, now McDavid – and the ensuing futility has beaten the same mantra into Hall that has enveloped this entire organization. “I don’t know if it gets more hard than this”. It is going to change in ways we haven’t seen in more than a decade. “There won’t be any easy games this year (against) our team”.

Said Pietrangelo, “We all are [curious]”.

“I was more comfortable this year than I was in past years because I had been through the process and played 12 games (which included his first National Hockey League goal)”, said Davidson. If they can build on the identity they forged previous year and see growth from budding star center Evgeny Kuznetsov and Andre Burakovsky they could be the team to beat in the Eastern Conference. Hall has been impressed by McDavid’s defensive play so far but cautioned not to make too much of how he comes out of the gate.

The day we’ve all been waiting for and counting down to is finally here! And here was the best, payin’ that price.

“I think that Eichel in Buffalo will win it”, said Ottawa’s Erik Karlsson. He’s obviously someone they’re talking about being a generational player.

For McDavid, leading the Oilers to the playoffs will be the first step. The expectations for immediate team improvement are imminently steeper. When Ovechkin scored 106 as a rookie he was on a poor Capitals team, but it was filled with veteran players. If he performs like most think he will, he’ll grab headlines, get his highlights on SportsCenter and occupy a heck of a lot of YouTube bandwidth.

Now Babcock, one of the great coaches in the game today, is tasked with bringing respectability back to Canada’s biggest sports franchise with a ravenous fan base.

McDavid, we have learned during his first professional training camp, is the under-promise and over-deliver type. Coach Todd McLellan thought the 18-year-old’s best period was the third, when he created two good scoring chances.

I’m excited for this season. Now they have people who would at least appear to have a better plan going forward. That it’s not a mirage – again – and they fall flat on their backs with a giant, “Ugh!” In between there is a vast middle, about 25 teams virtually indistinguishable from each other on paper.

“There’s a distinct different feeling”, he said. Anything can happen of course, but if McDavid stays healthy and continues propelling his game as he has so visibly over the last three seasons, the league may never be the same again. The new arena coming… “There is still a lot of work to be done, but it’s great to be here and have this opportunity”, said Davidson.