McDavid climbing toward Gretzky's territory, record in Stanley Cup Final

EDMONTON -- The NHL needed a new venue for the Edmonton Oilers press conference Thursday due to a concert at Rogers Place, so the League set it up in Studio 99, a sports bar on the fifth floor.

It was striking. At a time when Connor McDavid is writing his name next to Wayne Gretzky’s in the record book, here was McDavid sitting on a podium in the middle of a shrine to Gretzky -- jerseys and photos and trophies and mementos.

To McDavid’s right was one of Gretzky’s old Oilers jerseys encased in glass. To his left were some of Gretzky’s quotes on the wall, including this: “Be dedicated and work hard. It will be all worth it in the end.”

“Obviously, you spend your life working to get into a position like this,” said McDavid, two wins from a championship entering Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final against the Florida Panthers on Friday (8 p.m. ET; CBC, TVAS, SN, ESPN+, ABC). “You think that when you’re here, there’s going to be some magic feeling, a magic ...”

He paused for a moment, the word hanging in the air.

“Um, I don’t know,” he continued. “You just … You don’t know what to expect. To be honest, it’s all been pretty … pretty normal. This has always been part of the plan for our group, to be in a position like this, playing big games at home in big moments.”

This makes McDavid’s accomplishments even more impressive.

He wasn’t selected with the No. 1 pick of the 2015 NHL Draft by just any team. He was selected by Edmonton, the team with which Gretzky built so much of his legend.

Though he wore No. 97 as a nod to his birth year even before he arrived in the NHL, the visual of him in an Oilers jersey recalls No. 99 each time he takes the ice. Each game at Rogers Place, he skates underneath the banners honoring Gretzky’s No. 99 and Gretzky’s four championships (1984, 1985, 1987 and 1988).

The expectations couldn’t be higher, the media more intense, the fans more passionate.

Yet McDavid lives up to the hype and excels under the pressure.

“I don’t know how players can do that, because it’s such a microscope they play under,” said Kelly Hrudey, the former goalie who played with Gretzky with the Los Angeles Kings from 1988-96 and is covering the Cup Final as an analyst for Sportsnet. “I never had that.

“I think just to witness it and recognize it is really special, because it’s very hard for those players. As you know, they can’t go anywhere, and to have some sort of a regular life is impossible for them. To perform at the level they’re capable of is really difficult, for sure.”

McDavid is 27 years old, too young to have watched Gretzky play live. In an interview before the season, he said Gretzky, to him, was always kind of a “mythical player.”

“You just kind of heard about the numbers and stuff like that,” McDavid said then. “I think when I watch [replays of] ‘Gretz,’ the thing that I marvel at is just, like, his poise with the puck, his patience. The plays that he would make, nobody would see coming.”

Well, this is no myth. It’s reality.

McDavid is averaging 1.63 points per game in his career in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, second to Gretzky (1.84) among players who have appeared in at least eight games.

McDavid has 42 points (eight goals, 34 assists) in these playoffs, fourth in NHL history. He has already broken Gretzky’s record for assists on a single postseason (31 with Edmonton in 1988), and he’s five points from Gretzky’s record for points in a playoff run (47 with the Oilers in 1985).

McDavid has 11 points in the Cup Final (three goals, eight assists), tied for seventh in NHL history. He’s two points from Gretzky’s record for points in a Cup Final (13 with Edmonton in 1988) and two assists from Gretzky’s record for assists in a Cup Final (10 with the Oilers in 1988).

McDavid had back-to-back four-point performances in Game 4 (one goal, three assists) and Game 5 (two goals, two assists). No one had done that in the Cup Final before, not even Gretzky. The only other player with two four-point games at any point in a Cup Final is Gretzky, who had two for the Oilers in 1985.

One of the plays McDavid made, no one saw coming. On the power play in Game 5, he carried the puck up the ice, eluded one defender at the blue line and split two more in the offensive zone. After cutting through a thicket of sticks, he set up forward Corey Perry for a backdoor tap-in.

Asked about creating his own iconic moments, McDavid said: “Those things just happen. They’re a byproduct of being prepared, all the work that we’ve done throughout the regular season, all the work that we’ve done through this run. Those moments are products of guys who are ready for the big moment.”

These were some of Gretzky’s words on the wall as McDavid spoke: “The only way a kid is going to practice is if it’s total fun for him. And it was for me.”

It was, and still is, for McDavid, too.

“I don’t think you can be exceptional at anything you do unless you absolutely love what you’re doing, and he loves playing hockey,” said Edmonton coach Kris Knoblauch, who also coached McDavid with Erie of the Ontario Hockey League from 2012-15. “Obviously, there is some talent that is inherent. A lot of it, he had to work at and improve.

“I think that’s the most important thing. I think he’s a very competitive person also. He wants to win. He wants to be the best.”