Considering the claim of Connor McDavid being called overrated

With five days to build up to this season's Stanley Cup final matchup between the Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers, there's plenty of time to kill. As a result, there will be copious amounts written and spoken, which increases the chances of some takes which will be considered a little bit out there.

One prime candidate for this is the Miami Herald's Greg Cote, who on Monday shared some thoughts, including one which claimed Connor McDavid is overrated. He said: "He puts up big, impressive stats, yes. Fine. But should he really be called “generational,” called the best player in the sport, when in nine seasons he has yet to lead his team to a Stanley Cup?"

Cote then went on to reference Wayne Gretzky in comparison, as justification for calling McDavid overrated. He said: "Edmonton truly had one of those players, once. His name was Wayne Gretzky. He’s why the Oilers bunched five Stanley Cup wins in 1984-90. McDavid? No Gretzky. He has the requisite nicknames -- McJesus, The Chosen One -- but he has not proved beyond-stats transcendant, able to lift a franchise to ultimate heights. McOverrated."

At least Cote should try to get his facts straight

Now let's stress the importance of being objective about matters such as this, especially when we regularly write about McDavid as part of our Oilers coverage. With that said, right away Cote doesn't help his case, by saying Gretzky helped the team win five Stanley Cups, when in fact it was four.

How can you claim to be an authority and knowledgeable expert in the field of hockey, when making this mistake? If you're going to share an audacious take on someone, at least have your facts correct, or right away it makes you like foolish and uneducated.

Further, you can make the case that to compare pretty much anyone in today's game to Gretzky, is irrational and unreasonable. The majority of players currently plying their trade in the NHL, are going to look like a disappointment and underachievers, when compared to 'The Great One'.

With those two points out of the way, is there still any merit to Cote's claim? On a very basic level, yes he's correct in stating McDavid has indeed yet to help the Oilers win the Stanley Cup, but the answer is no regardless.

This isn't the NBA

Last time we checked, hockey is arguably the ultimate team sport, where it's pretty tough for any one player to lead his team to glory, whether the talent level around him is good or not. This isn't the NBA, where it's so much easy for a superstar to dominate just by virtue of being on the court for the majority of a game.

Case in point being the NBA's own generational talent and superstar, LeBron James. During his career he has so far played an average of 37.9 minutes out of 48, which works out to 79.0 percent per game.

By comparison, McDavid has an average ice-time of 21:42 per contest to date during his NHL career. This works out to just 35.7 percent per game, which isn't even half of the amount of time James is playing.

If anything, this makes it even more astounding just how dominant McDavid has been during his career. Racking up such an impressive array of stats -- and honours -- when effectively just playing one period per game is actually a positive, rather than somehow alluding to Cote's take that he is overrated.

Critics will attribute Cote's take on McDavid, as evidence that he doesn't actually understand the game of hockey as well as he may believe. Others will claim that the Miami Herald journalist is just attempting to draw attention to himself with a 'hot take', in turn helping to rack up the page views.

From our perspective, we will just simply put it that everyone is entitled to their opinion, but Cote is still unequivocally wrong. The problem is, if the Oilers go on to lose the Stanley Cup Final to the Panthers, he will have more 'evidence' to back up his claim that McDavid is overrated; fans can only hope he wins and in the process puts Cote in his place.

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