Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid wins Conn Smythe Trophy after losing in Game 7

Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid has been awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as the NHL playoffs’ most valuable player after an incredible postseason that ended just shy of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

The Oilers dropped Game 7 of the Cup Final to Florida 2-1 on Monday night, as the Panthers won the best-of-seven series 4-3.

McDavid did not return to the ice to receive the individual award.

Edmonton attempted an improbable comeback by winning Game 4 and Game 5 of the series after falling behind 3-0 in the final.

The end result did not detract from McDavid’s stellar, record-breaking performance in the postseason.

The 27-year-old superstar had eight goals and 34 assists and led the playoffs with 42 points.

2:21
Oilers are on the brink of the greatest comeback in sports history

McDavid becomes only the sixth player in NHL history to win the Conn Smythe Trophy, but not the Stanley Cup.

He joins the likes of Roger Crozier (Detroit Red Wings, 1966), Glenn Hall (St. Louis Blues, 1968), Reggie Leach (Philadelphia Flyers, 1976), Ron Hextall (Philadelphia Flyers, 1987) and Jean-Sebastien Giguere (Anaheim Mighty Ducks, 2003).

He is also the second skater from a Stanley Cup-losing team to win the award, following Leach.

McDavid broke Wayne Gretzky’s record of 31 assists in the playoffs, falling five points shy of the Great One’s mark of 47 in a single postseason.

He had four points (one goal, three assists) in Game 4, and then did it again (two goals, two assists) in Game 5 to become the first player in Stanley Cup finals history with consecutive four-point games.

McDavid was also the first in league history with eight points in a two-game stretch of the same series.

The 6-foot-4, 194-pound center is the first player to make four different four-point plays in a single Stanley Cup playoff round since the Oilers’ glory days of the 1980s.

Gretzky had six four-point games in the 1985 playoffs, while Paul Coffey and Jari Kurri played four games that same year. Mark Messier had four such games in the 1988 playoffs.

No one did it before, or since, until McDavid this season.

McDavid finished the year with a career-high 174 points in 101 games, the most by anyone in a single NHL season since Mario Lemieux had 188 points with Pittsburgh in 1995-96.

This marks the fourth consecutive season that McDavid has led the NHL in points while combining regular-season and post-season games.

It is the longest streak since Gretzky, who topped the all-season scoring charts in nine consecutive campaigns, spanning from 1979-80 (when he was tied with Marcel Dionne) through 1987-88.

&copy 2024 The Canadian Press