“He’s always in people’s faces,” Evason noted. Despite McDavid being ostensibly out of the play, Brodin remains glued to him, matching his glide exactly. All an exasperated-looking McDavid could do is dump the puck along the boards and glide straight-legged behind the net. He initially goes hard after a puck in the corner, but immediately Brodin closes the gap between them and gets in between McDavid and any possible play. McDavid is covered like a blanket as he goes into the corner. When those work in concert, he can go from a standstill to carving up entire defenses before they even know what’s happening. He’s got one of the highest top speeds in the NHL, to go with elite acceleration and a brain and two hands that can keep up with his skates. It’s overly simplistic to say that McDavid’s speed makes him uniquely lethal. So how on earth could Brodin have undisputably handled McDavid without even controlling 30% of shot attempts? To figure this out, we’ll need to turn to the tape and break it down. “He’s so calm,” said Ryan Hartman after the game. McDavid was held to zero points, his second scoreless outing in three games against the Wild this year.Īfter the game, no one doubted which player emerged the victor. And despite being in the defensive zone most of the night, Brodin did, too. Even when you account for Minnesota blocking nine of those attempts, and Edmonton missing a couple more, he still had a 7-3 edge in shots.Īt the end of the night, though, the Wild did their job, easily dispatching the Oilers 5-1. In the 10:55 they faced each other at 5-on-5, McDavid’s Oilers put up 18 shot attempts and conceded just five to Brodin’s Wild. Who won the match-up? It’d be easy to look at the stat sheet and conclude McDavid absolutely had his way with Brodin and the Wild. “It’s fun, you know? It’s fun to play against the best players in the world.” “They’ve got probably the two best players in the league,” he said, referring to McDavid and 2019-20 MVP Leon Draisaitl. You can believe Brodin knew he was the marquee match-up. No one skates forwards better than McDavid, and no one skates backward better than Brodin. Even their skating, the shared skill that makes them elite, are somehow opposites. McDavid is arguably the league’s most explosive offensive player, while Brodin has long been atop the list of best shutdown defensemen. On the ice, it’s hard to find two players more opposite. No, Jonas Brodin was the real prizefighter to square off with McDavid.
Sadly, anyone wanting to watch the stars go head-to-head was treated to just four minutes of Kaprizov vs.
Slap those two on the poster and take an early lunch. In the other, the reigning MVP Connor McDavid.
It’s the Battle of the 97s! In one corner, Kirill Kaprizov, the Siberian Sniper. If you had to make a boxing-style poster to promote last night’s tilt between the Minnesota Wild and Edmonton Oilers, your job would be easy.
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