McDavid insisted he was still happy with his time and it didn't bother him he didn't get the same conditions as Larkin, but it was impossible not to sense that it bothered him a little bit.
"I was happy with that run, honestly," McDavid said. "Maybe if I had a running start or something like that … but [Larkin] deserves to be the fastest guy ever to do it. He's an unbelievable skater and he deserves it."
McDavid defeated Nathan MacKinnon of the Colorado Avalanche in his heat, and did so pretty easily by six-tenths of a second. MacKinnon is one of the fastest players in the NHL himself, but he couldn't quite keep up with McDavid.
"I feel like he was good off the hop and I was kind of sleeping," MacKinnon said. "It is what it is. He's not a bad guy to lose to."
The rest of the NHL All-Stars get to see McDavid's speed on a regular basis, but it was still impressive for them to watch what he did up close Saturday.
"I was sitting next to [St. Louis Blues forward Vladimir] Tarasenko while he was going and we were just saying that you can't really teach speed like that," Anaheim Ducks defenseman Cam Fowler said. "That's something that you're born with or you develop over time. That's not something that you can instill in somebody that doesn't have it. So a pretty natural talent and to be able to have a front row seat for that was pretty cool for me."