Connor McDavid is not signed yet, and yes, folks here are freaking out just as much as they did in Toronto a year ago, when Marner skated through a season without a dreal, the rhetoric getting surlier and surlier as the months passed by.
“It's hard. I get it. I understand that there's a lot of anxiousness, or anxiety,” said general manager Stan Bowman, who took the podium on the opening day of Oilers training camp, not 24 hours after McDavid had given Oilers fans one more audio clip to fret over.
“My wife and I love being in Edmonton, and we have every intention to win here in Edmonton,” McDavid had told Elliotte Friedman and Kyle Bukauskas the previous morning in an interview for the 32 Thoughts Podcast.
“I have all the faith in the world in this 25-26 season … Beyond that remains to be seen,” he said, cryptically. “We have time, it’s our decision. We’ve earned that and we’re going to take our time with it.”