Connor McDavid has become a dominant two-way player in 2021
The young Oilers captain should be the clear front-runner in the Hart Trophy race so far
While you’ll definitely hear people say players such as Auston Matthews, Sidney Crosby or Nathan MacKinnon are the best player in the world, it’s probably the popular opinion around the league for both fans and players that Connor McDavid ranks #1.
But despite that, he’s just won just one Hart Trophy for league MVP in his career, which was in 2017. He didn’t win it in 2018 or 2019 because his team missed the playoffs (which isn’t a very good argument at all, making the playoffs is a team stat). He didn’t win it in 2020 due to his teammate Leon Draisaitl being better and stepping up when McDavid was injured.
Now this year, McDavid’s team is currently tied for 1st in the division, and he’s first in both points and in multiple advanced stats. But there are still people saying he shouldn’t win it?
Some say Patrick Kane has been more valuable to Chicago, a team which a lot of people predicted to miss the playoffs, while others may say McDavid isn’t producing a lot at 5v5 and/or is too one-dimensional. This article will be going into McDavid’s play in 2021, see if these arguments hold water or not and if he should win the Hart based on his play thus far.
Connor McDavid’s offence is somehow at another level
It’s hard to believe, but somehow Connor McDavid’s offensive game has grown.
McDavid is spending more time in the offensive zone than ever. He’s producing points in every situation at the highest rate in his career, and he’s reached 60 points in just 34 games. This is the fastest he’s reached this mark in his career (he reached 60 points in 39 games in the past two seasons.), as he’s on pace for 144 points and is tied for the league lead in goals.
He’s also spending a lot more time in the offensive zone, which is backed up by his possession stats. Whenever he’s on the ice, the Oilers spend a large portion of their time in the o-zone.
McDavid has been the best shot quality and scoring chance play-driver in the league. No player is generating more scoring chances at the rate he is.
Part of his excellent play-driving may be that he’s starting to shoot more; his individual expected goals/60 and shots/60 are at a career-high. Part of his success may also be contributed to him being an even better transition player this year.
This is via Corey Sznajder, and I’d recommend checking out his work and his manual tracking of microstats, or in other words, advanced stats in terms of individual plays.
To go along with McDavid’s point totals and excellent play-driving, McDavid has always been an active transition player, but he’s been even better this year, as he’s gone from 24.1 zone entries/60 to 27.3. He’s been the best player in the league at creating scoring chances off of these entries and has been a proficient attacker off the rush.
Furthermore, he’s making more high danger passes (which probably contribute to the increase of his assist totals) and has become a slightly better forechecker. He was already at a very good 2.6 5v5 high danger passes/60 in 19-20, but that’s gone up to 4.4 this year. His recovered dump-ins/60 have also gone from 2.1 last year to 5.8 this season.
It’s hard to think it’s possible, but the best offensive player in the league in the 2000s has somehow managed to take another step in that area. But what about the other end of the ice, you may ask?
His defence has improved immensely
Connor McDavid’s defence in prior years, to make it short and simple, was bad. He was consistently on-ice for a large quantity and quality of goals and scoring chances, and he was somewhat of a one-dimensional player. His two-way play was even criticized for being a reason for why the Oilers were losing (although this is not true, there were a lot of worse issues.). This year, however:
(Chart via EvolvingHockey) So to make it as simple as possible; blue = good, red = bad. The first three bars are offence, last 2 bars are defence. The chart on the left is McDavid from 2017-2020, and the chart on the right is McDavid this year.
McDavid was (obviously) always an elite offensive talent, but was that the same for his defence? Not so much, it was probably the opposite. He was near the bottom of the league in that regard.
That changed this year, as saying he improved in his own end is an understatement. His impact on denying scoring chances hasn’t been Selke level, but it’s been very good. The Oilers allow scoring chances and shots against at a lower rate with McDavid on the bench.
To add on, his box score stats have also been good (I don’t like box score stats at all. But in this scenario, they’re just used to further strengthen McDavid’s play.).
McDavid was 41.3%, 46.6%, and 47.7% in the faceoff dot in the past 3 years respectively. This year, he’s 51.4 % in the dot. To add on, his giveaways/60 in the past 3 years was 2.8. It’s 2.2 this year. So basically in almost every statistical way, he’s been better in his end.
Now, what about the eye test?
I’ve watched every Oilers game this season, but I decided to re-watch a couple of McDavid’s latest games and focus only on him and no one else, and I think he’s getting these defensive results due to a couple of reasons:
A) Two defensively responsible linemates like Nugent-Hopkins and Puljujarvi have been very beneficial
B) His overall defensive awareness seems to be better, he seems more involved in the defensive zone and is getting better at the “little plays”
C) Offence can sometimes be the best defence; like said before, he’s spending a lot more time in the offensive zone and maintaining possession for a longer time, leading to decreased time in the d-zone. This leads to a decrease of chances against
Last year, in my eyes, there were occasions where he would skate lethargically in the d-zone and almost wait for his team to obtain possession so he can speed the other way; it’s almost like cheating for offence a bit. He’s had a lot of coverage issues last year.
But that was more of a habit in prior seasons. It seems to have decreased a lot this year compared to what I saw last season.
I think McDavid is getting better at the little details of defence (these are some clips from the games I watched, couldn’t include them all as Substack seems to have a GIF time limit).
From what I saw, McDavid is making more recoveries, helping in puck battles, etc. McDavid is also starting to put more pressure on the offensive zone puck carriers as shown by his play on Paul Stastny (#25 for WPG) in the video. I don’t think he’s great defensively yet; there are still times where he makes risky turnovers that have led to goals, such as Calgary’s first goal during the game last Wednesday, and his coverage definitely isn’t perfect. But his turnover rate is still the lowest it’s ever been. He’s making much smarter plays now and it’s an overall improvement.
He’s doing a good job at converting his recoveries or intercepted passes into possession, a breakout or a scoring chance using that amazing speed and agility of his (like shown below).
He’s been more engaged in his end and making more of those “little plays.” I think it’s partially because he has less pressure to score as Edmonton’s depth is improving and as the overall team is getting better at both ends.
Although I think his defensive awareness has grown, I think the 1st and especially the 3rd point I made are also significant reasons. Jesse Puljujarvi has been excellent this year; his strong forechecking has assisted McDavid and Nugent-Hopkins to sustain possession and spend more time in the offensive zone. McDavid’s individual increase in carrying the puck even more into the zone and shooting a lot has probably played somewhat of a role in his career-high possession stats. Sometimes, a lot of offensive zone possesion results in less defensive zone time. Playing defence by spending a lot of time in the offensive zone is a form of defence; in the end, he’s preventing scoring chances and shots, which is the exact objective of skater defence. His line has done an excellent job at pinning the opposition’s defenders into their zone.
To my eye, McDavid also seems better at protecting the puck, and his passes seem even more accurate and precise than before. His game has moved from being a risky, high event game to a more balanced, dominant possession-style one, similar to how he played in 16-17.
All in all, I think all of these are good reasons for his statistical improvement in his defence, and I think it’s time to start saying he isn’t just a one-dimensional player anymore. He deserves credit for being a strong two-way player in 2021 so far, and let’s hope he keeps it up.
So, should McDavid win the Hart?
The short answer? Yes.
The long answer?
Connor McDavid has provided more value than any other player. He ranks 1st in the league in:
Points
5v5 Points
WAR (Wins Above Replacement, a model by EvolvingHockey based on the on-ice impact a player provides offensively and defensively)
xWAR (Expected Wins Above Replacement, another EvolvingHockey model)
RAPM xG +/- (In simple terms, the isolated plus/minus of a player’s impact on scoring chances and shot quality, also via EvolvingHockey)
Furthermore, McDavid holds 25.9% of his team’s total WAR. To compare to other Hart candidates, Kane holds 21.7%, Barkov holds 20.5%, and Matthews holds 12.0%.
Patrick Kane has been interesting this year. His offence has been superb, but his defensive impact (isolated for teammates) has been near the bottom of the league. For forwards, he’s had the 2nd worst impact on suppressing shot quality against, ahead of only Blake Wheeler. So while he is putting up good numbers and has been very valuable to a team that was never supposed to make the playoffs, he hasn’t provided more value than McDavid.
Auston Matthews is scoring a lot of goals, although due to what seems like a minor slump for Toronto/a wrist injury, he’s slowed down. Still, McDavid was always ahead of Matthews in overall impact, even in January and February. People will say Matthews has been a better two-way player but is that really true this year?
Some Leafs fans will point out that Matthews has been great with winning puck battles, making stick checks, and has had solid takeaway and faceoff stats.
I went over this in a prior article all about how to evaluate defensive play, and to sum it up, these stats are simply events that don’t measure results. Having lots of takeaways and winning puck battles is great, but in the end, is the player doing their objective of making life easier for the goalie and suppressing shots and chances?
Plain and simple; McDavid has been the better player this year at preventing chances against, or in other words, playing defence.
Players such as Barkov, Crosby, Kopitar, Draisaitl, etc, have all been very good, but their impact has not been good as McDavid’s this year. You can argue a goalie for Hart this year, like Fleury or Vasilevskiy, but I still think I would have McDavid as number #1.
Conclusion
For the entire offseason and especially during the playoffs, we heard all about how Connor McDavid was one-dimensional and a very incomplete player, and people had very good reason to say that.
But this isn’t true for 20-21. McDavid has somehow improved in the offensive and defensive zone and has taken a huge step. This has been the best year of his career.
Some may say it’s purely because of the weak division he plays in, and although it’s not a very strong division, I don’t get that argument.
Only one Canadian team is in the bottom 8 of the league in goals against/60. Additionally, there are weak teams in every other division as well, not just the North Division (Anaheim and San Jose in the West, Buffalo and New Jersey in the East, Detroit in the central, etc). On top of that, McDavid was always elite offensively, and we saw him play this style of two-way game in 16-17 in a normal season. So it shouldn’t be shocking that the best player in the league is playing like the best player in the league.
To sum it up, McDavid is playing the best hockey of his career. He’s on pace for 144 points over a full season right now, and his current WAR over 82 games would be 6.5, the highest in the past decade and the 2nd highest of all time in the analytical era (only behind Pavel Datsyuk in 2007). His career-high in WAR was 6.2 back in 2017.
It’s very safe to say that this is the best Connor McDavid we’ve seen thus far, and it should be no question for who should be the front runner for the MVP of the year.
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