Edmonton, Alberta — While fans of the Calgary Flames are straining to say goodbye to the Saddledome at the end of the 2026-27 season, their rivals up north are worried about a different kind of countdown. Connor McDavid, the franchise center who led the Edmonton Oilers to back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals, may or may not leave the city when the contract extension he signed expires in the summer of 2028 when this season expires. Either way, by God this city wants to celebrate the Cup before his time finally comes to an end.
The 29-year-old has already amassed a trophy case full of personal awards attesting to his greatness, which he can display in his unspeakably cold home if he wants. But the NHL’s assists and points leader is (still) special in a more tactile sense when you see him live. Hockey has a strange way of keeping most of its players anonymous. Even serious attendees paying attention to the action would have a hard time memorizing the names of every player on the ice at any given moment. Because the game is so fast, no one stays on the ice for very long, and the skaters all basically look the same from a distance. But in the four games I’ve seen, I’ve seen McDavid play live. Three games on the road and one at home on Friday, he did so in part because people in the seats seemed ready to chant his name as soon as he touched the puck. I realized that again when the Oilers took on the Carolina Hurricanes. He took possession and calmly crossed the neutral zone as two voices on the other side of my section chanted “McDavid!” In the opposite location, it’s more likely that some idiot will yell “McJesus!”, but that counts too.
They do it because when the puck is on McDavid’s stick, something special tends to happen. He is very fast. He includes amusement park spin moves. He deftly plays the role of the defense’s knife as opposed to butter. And sometimes he’s just magic personified.
Opened in 2016, Oilers Stadium feels like a palace built specifically to house McDavid’s royal talents. It was a trip that could be experienced (very smoothly!) in just one 24-hour bus ride, followed by a visit to the Saddledome, which felt like a family living room (free) in contrast to its much younger sibling to the north. The plainly named Rogers Place is downright gigantic, even compared to other recent NHL construction projects in Detroit and Long Island. This is an alien spaceship that has landed in the middle of downtown Edmonton, and is so large that you can look around its interior even before scanning your ticket. When you take the escalator up to the 200th floor (actually it’s like 3 floors or higher due to the suites and log floors), it feels like you’re going to hit your head against the sky. Many buildings in the NHL boast higher capacity, but I’ve never been to a hockey arena this amazing. exorbitant.
I had a better time at the Saddledome because, despite all the great design work at Rogers Place, I couldn’t find a way to stop the guy in front of me from blocking my view of the nearside net. But the overstimulation of lights, noise, and hype videos is a better fit for what the Oilers are doing now than the unassuming, quirky little saddle the spiraling Flames are ready to replace. Edmonton has been the second-best team in the NHL for the second straight year, and the super duo of Draisaitl and McDavid remain at the top of their powers. The only problem, and a long-standing one, is that they are 0-for-4 when attempting their No. 1 goalie this season. None of them were any good.
What are the results? Overstimulation. The players at the top put the puck in the goal, and the players at the back put the ball in the goal. On Friday, Edmonton’s starting goaltender Tristan Jarry said a sarcastic “You made the save!” Cheer on Patrick Roy at some point during this game, like when he played in Montreal. The Oilers’ deadline move was driven by a self-consciousness: “We have to get more.” gritty“The reasons are they don’t have a lot to trade and they were already in jeopardy when they traded for Jarry in December. His contract lasts as long as McDavid’s, so I think they’re in for the ride with him. But he really needs to get better if they want to avoid slipping out of the playoff bubble.
Canes-Oilers was a fun matchup because they are different kinds of good teams with the same fundamental problems. The Canes don’t have a star-studded roster of skaters like the Oilers, and their relatively underwhelming headliner is one of the reasons they haven’t passed the East’s toughest test in the later stages of the playoffs. However, the Canes were able to continue their streak of great regular seasons thanks to the incredible coaching of Rod Brind’Amour, who motivated his players to outsmart their opponents and do more, increasing their winning percentage by keeping the puck as close to the other team’s net as possible. This is how Brandon Bussi, who went from nothing special with a .901 save percentage, to looking like the best player in the world this year with a 25-3-1 record.
Frederik Andersen, who has been poor all season, got the start for Carolina on Friday and scored the first goal of the night when Jack Hyman completed a breakaway after taking a long pass from McDavid over the defense. It was a great pass by any player’s standards, but honestly, I was a bit greedy. I hadn’t yet seen a McDavid goal in the previous three Oilers games, and I wanted one of those moments where I could send people a highlight clip and say, “I was there.”
The Canes responded immediately to the Hyman goal with a one-timer too slow for Jarry to move left, followed by a deflection through traffic that maintained a 2-1 lead at the break. The second teams traded second goals. The Canes had the occasional soft feel when keeping the puck in their most productive areas, while the Oilers used turnovers on the boards that really showed the real value of grit. But by the end of the second, Carolina had a huge 26-12 shot advantage. In the third they were on top, and although Draisaitl provided a pretty painful assist on a drive to a corner kick for another Hyman goal to keep them in the contest for a while, the final score was a poor 6-3 Hurricanes.
This may sound rude, but while anticipating a stunning goal from McDavid, I couldn’t help but catalog in my head the moments when he fell short. There he was losing the puck. There he was denied entry into the area. He was whistled for an interference penalty. His audience tonight didn’t get it. If I had taken away something new from observing his shifts from my vantage point, I probably would have had a slightly better understanding of when to move at full speed at critical moments and when to switch to conserve energy.
But please don’t label me as ungrateful. Hours later, I’m still thinking about the sequence in which the visiting team trapped the Oilers in their own defensive zone in the latter stages of the first period, preventing them from getting the puck out until they had to ice it. The hustle and bustle of the few minutes this agony lasted was unparalleled. They swarmed into Edmonton and thwarted all attempts to regroup. Even though they didn’t have an organized attack ready, the Canes still managed to bounce off other goals. Guys like IchiroI thought as I watched this unfold. In baseball terms, their primary goal is that of a contact hitter. It’s about waiting for a pitch, fouling a ball that you can’t do anything about, and putting the onus on your opponent not to mess up. Having to bow down amidst the rigors of a regular season is a tough endeavor, and the Hurricanes have a soft spot in my heart for their commitment to this style. I know I sound like a weirdo, but this brand of tilted ice hockey gets me excited. The flavors are as follows:
Thanks to the persistence of Friday’s hurricane, I learned that Saddledome and Rogers Place have exactly one thing in common. The thing is that when the road team brings in an empty net, both crowds are gone in an instant.
