All Eyes on Connor McDavid's Future in Edmonton After Another Playoff Disappointment

It's still a little early. The eyes are too glassy and the legs too unsteady to fully comprehend what's happened, so having a full grasp on the long-term ramifications is a bit much to ask.

But Edmonton Oilers fans will get there soon enough.

Once things come back into focus, even the blindest of the orange-and-blue faithful will work through the angst caused by another playoff letdown against a painfully familiar foe.

And they'll cope with the reality that the Stanley Cup—close enough to touch for two straight springs—is likely getting smaller and smaller in the Oilers' rearview mirror with every passing day.

At that point, perhaps they'll be ready to handle something far more consequential. Because as painful as those losses to the Florida Panthers have been, they're nothing compared to what may come next.

Dave Sandford/NHLI via Getty Images

Connor McDavid. The greatest player in the world. Pulling on another uniform.

Yes, it can happen. And yes, there's a real chance that it will.

Fans of a certain age are still smarting from the series of events that led to the franchise's last transcendent player—some guy named Gretzky—leaving town in the prime of his career. It occurred in the summer of 1988 after No. 99 ended the penultimate year on a long-term contract, prompting a cash-strapped owner to swap him for financial assets and a handful of players.

Andrew D. Bernstein/Getty Images

Today's circumstances are different, of course. Owner Daryl Katz's vault is plenty full, and there's little reason to believe he can't fit McDavid's asking price—which could make him the league's first $20 million man—into the budget.

The question this time is not whether the franchise has the funds to keep him, but whether the superstar will want to stay. Given the sting this spring, the answer may be no.

Though he's been a perpetual company man since arriving in 2015 and his primary on-ice running mate, Leon Draisaitl, re-upped soon after his negotiating window opened last summer, the level of frustration now compared to last year’s post-Final afterglow can't be dismissed.

Edmonton has won nine series over the last four postseasons, but it only got a sniff of a would-be parade after falling into a 3-0 series hole against Florida last year. It then fumbled home-ice advantage twice in the rematch that ended with the 5-1 loss in Game 6 on Tuesday.

Given the personnel, it's as historic a run of futility as there's been in any major sport.

While a handful of MLB teams have fielded pairs of stars in recent years, no tandem has been together for as long as McDavid and Draisaitl, nor can they match the dynamic duo's six scoring titles and four MVP awards in 10 years.

Tim Heitman/Getty Images

No players have scored more points in the regular season, and of the eight others who round out the top 10 scorers in the playoffs—where the Oilers' pair are first and third—all but one have won at least one championship.

Meanwhile, Edmonton had already missed the playoffs or did not win a series five times in the McDavid/Draisaitl era. The Oilers reached the conference semifinals before falling in 2017 and 2023 and was swept by Colorado in the Western Conference Final in 2022 before last year's Stanley Cup Final loss.

This year's disappointment, as it relates to the future, is incredibly ill-timed.

Having finally shown his stuff in meaningful games, becoming a rare Conn Smythe winner from a losing team in the process, McDavid surely arrived in 2024-25 thinking a title run was not only possible, but nearly inevitable.

Given the Oilers' 16-game rampage through the first three rounds of these playoffs, during which they went 12-4 while dispatching Los Angeles, Vegas and Dallas, such optimism was justified. But a season-ending wrist injury to front-line winger Zach Hyman—and the ever-present questions about goaltending—ultimately doomed Edmonton in its rematch with the Panthers, whose aggressive forecheck wreaked perpetual havoc and limited McDavid to an inconsequential goal and seven points.

Six games, two home losses and 28 goals allowed later, and it would only be natural if some doubt is creeping into McDavid's hyper-competitive conscience.

Jeff Vinnick/Getty Images

Oft-benched goalie Stuart Skinner is still under contract for another season. Defenseman Evan Bouchard is a prime target for an offer sheet. And veteran forwards Hyman and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins are another year into their 30s and increasingly less likely to approach the career-year numbers—Hyman scored 54 goals in 2023-24, Nugent-Hopkins had 100 points in 2022-23—that have helped supplement the superstars' output.

Given the decisions that sent youngsters Ryan McLeod (25), Philip Broberg (23) and Dylan Holloway (23) packing last offseason—not to mention the dearth of blue-chip prospects in the pipeline—there's little evidence to suggest the Oilers' window would be open for much (if any) of another eight years even if No. 97 chooses to stay beyond the end of the current deal he signed in 2017.

Would he still have a high-end running mate in Draisaitl? Yes. But would it amount to anything more than the decade of disappointment he's already endured with the spectacular German at his side? Probably not.

Although he's expressed no public angst or dropped so much as a hint about a burning desire to play elsewhere other than the eternally cryptic “do what's best for my family,” it's fair to wonder if McDavid will be as quick to sign an extension after another Cup Final letdown as Draisaitl did last summer. If he doesn't, it would set the stage for a summer of 24/7 angst.

While the old-timers recall that Gretzky's exit was undeniably traumatic, the four banners he helped hang in town did soften the blow. Seeing a ring-less McDavid skate off into a sunset anywhere other than northern Alberta would be nothing short of torture.

Buckle up, Oil Country.