Written by Alex Prewitt at SI.com
The first explicit waves of internal support came rushing through Edmonton last April, when the Oilers held exit meetings after the 2015-16 season and their players all but arrived toting rubber stamps. Again and again, over the course of conversation, talk kept turning to the group’s vacant captaincy. Again and again, the teenager’s name kept popping up. “They weren’t poked or prodded with direct questions,” says coach Todd McLellan. “But a number of them mentioned that it was time for Connor to take the team and lead it. It was evident that the team was ready to support him.”
That Edmonton surprised exactly no one by making Connor McDavid the youngest captain in NHL history—at 19 years, 226 days old upon the early-October announcement—indeed seemed long ago embossed in orange and blue ink. He had already served the same role under McLellan for Team North America at the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, and before that with the Ontario Hockey League’s Erie Otters during his final season of Canadian juniors in ’14-15. Heck, as a kid he would insist that his mother snip little C’s out of felt material and sew them onto his replica Maple Leafs and Penguins jerseys. “Always had to have one,” Kelly McDavid says. “Then it got to the point where he got older and he would just do it himself.”
So it should also come as no surprise that McDavid, now 20 years old and the league’s scoring leader with 75 points through Sunday, has embraced the demands and fame of his new gig with the same unflinching calm displayed while zipping on the rush, or dancing around defensemen, or tugging the Oilers (35-24-9, 79 points) toward their first postseason appearance in a decade. Postgame interviews after tough losses? Sprawling lines of autograph hounds? Community speaking engagements, like last weekend’s gala honoring local police officers? No sweat. “You wouldn’t know he’s a hockey player, if that makes sense,” says Darnell Nurse, an Edmonton defenseman and McDavid’s roommate. “He’s not burdened by anything.”
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