State Your Case: McDavid's chances at Conn Smythe Trophy

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Connor McDavid has been taking the Stanley Cup Playoffs by storm.

The Edmonton Oilers captain leads all scorers with 42 points (eight goals, 34 assists) in 23 postseason games. His teammate, defenseman Evan Bouchard, is next with 32 points (six goals, 26 assists).

And if it's even possible, McDavid seems to have taken his game to another level as the Stanley Cup Final against the Florida Panthers has progressed.

In the past two games, each an Edmonton victory, McDavid has eight points (three goals, five assists). He's the first player in NHL history with consecutive four-point games at any point in a Cup Final and he's the first active player in the League to have 11 points (three goals, eight assists) in a Cup Final, the highest total of any player since Daniel Briere had 12 points (three goals, nine assists) for the Philadelphia Flyers in the 2010 Final.

McDavid been a big reason why the Oilers, who were down 3-0 in the best-of-7 series on June 13, have a chance to tie the series 3-3 when they host the Panthers in Game 6 at Rogers Place in Edmonton on Friday (8 p.m. ET; ABC, ESPN+, SN, TVAS, CBC).

But has McDavid done enough to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as most valuable player of the postseason -- regardless of what happens the rest of the way?

That's the question facing NHL.com senior writer Dan Rosen and staff writer Tracey Myers in this edition of State Your Case.

Myers: You know, I'm terrible at arguing anything and yet I love to play devil's advocate. This is an incredibly difficult one to debate but I'll give it a shot. McDavid has been incredible, no doubt about that. Just look at the stats. But I'm hung up on the if-they-lose part of this. I know it wouldn't be the first time a player on a losing team won the Conn Smythe (please see Mighty Ducks of Anaheim goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere from the 2003 postseason) but it's still about helping your team win the ultimate prize, right? If the Oilers come up short, how much do you point back to the games where McDavid and others were silent, especially in Games 1-3, when he was stunningly held to three assists? This is where I'm at with this right now.

Rosen: The NHL could hold a press conference at Rogers Place in Edmonton on Thursday, the day before Game 6, with the Oilers down 3-2 in the series, award McDavid the Conn Smythe Trophy and no one anywhere would blink an eye. That's how good he has been. That's how valuable he has been to Edmonton's postseason run. In most cases I would agree that to win the Conn Smythe Trophy you need to have led your team to a Cup championship. But this isn't most cases. This is a special case. This is McDavid doing things the likes of only Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux have done. He has joined them as the only players in NHL history to have at least 40 points in a single postseason. His 42 points are fourth all-time behind Gretzky's 47 in 1984-85, Lemieux's 44 in 1990-91 and Gretzky's 43 in 1987-88. McDavid clinched it with his eight points in potential elimination games in the Cup Final. He has more to do, but he doesn't have to do anything else to win the Conn Smythe Trophy.

Myers: Listen, I know I'm dog paddling upstream here. The man has more individual hardware than Home Depot. McDavid-ing should be a thing. But again, it's getting your team over the ultimate hump. Hey, at the rate this is going, the Oilers may be making some history by overcoming a 3-0 lead and winning a Cup for the first time since World War II and if that happens, well, this has all been moot. But until that happens, I'm going to hold out and say I need Edmonton to win it all for McDavid to get the Conn Smythe.

Rosen: I have to give Tracey credit here for taking the dissenting opinion in what seems like a one-sided debate. She puts up a good argument, the right argument. Normally, I'd be agreeing with her, but it's so one-sided toward McDavid, I don't think the Oilers need to win the Stanley Cup for him to win the Conn Smythe Trophy. In fact, I'd argue that in Game 1, Edmonton got goalie'd pretty good by Sergei Bobrovsky. The game counts, a 3-0 loss, but that was all Bobrovsky. It had very little to do with McDavid. Game 3 was similar. Listen, we know no one else on the Oilers can or will win the Conn Smythe Trophy if they win the Stanley Cup. We know it's McDavid lapping the field on his own team. So that means we must put McDavid up against the Panthers' best candidate. To me, that's center Aleksander Barkov, who has been brilliant in the playoffs too and has had his moments in the Final. Well, it's a no contest between the two. McDavid has twice as many points as Barkov in one more game. Twice as many. 42-21. That's game over, debate over. This is McDavid's trophy. Just give it to him now and get on to Game 6.