Connor McDavid wasn’t looking at the goal. He’s a superlative passer, so that scanned; he has always tried to make his teammates better. No other Edmonton Oiler was coming to help, which is a metaphor that almost works, but not quite. Still, McDavid was gazing into open ice, and in fairness Morgan Rielly couldn’t have known there was nobody there. He had enough to worry about.

“I’m just looking,” said McDavid, after Edmonton’s 6-4 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs Monday night. “I mean, I knew (Ryan Nugent-Hopkins) was jumping in, so I thought, you know, maybe give him a chance to make an odd-man rush, maybe two-on-one. And then just try to make a play.”

Watching McDavid play hockey in person is hilarious, even if sometimes it can be a little sad. He is hockey terror personified. Someone once said that usually you see scoring chances coming, but McDavid creates them out of the clear blue sky. Once in a while he makes defencemen lunge at him like they’re trying to grab a passing horse. He’s so good that sometimes you just have to laugh.

That he’s been doing it for the Edmonton Oilers, of course, is usually the other part. McDavid anywhere is an occasion, but in Toronto he is a happening: hometown kid, best player in the world and of his generation, and the Leafs always win. Well, they had every time he’s come home. And the last time these teams played McDavid got stuffed in a sack, relatively speaking, and the Leafs won in Edmonton.

Monday was McDavid’s revenge. He already had three assists and had pushed John Tavares to one end of the rink when a puck came to him in the neutral zone, with Edmonton up 5-3. Nobody was close. McDavid had time. He drifted into the Leafs zone, one on one with Rielly, looking theatrically at the open wing. Rielly has talked about how you have to guard McDavid like you’re an NFL cornerback: shadow his feet, jam him at the line before he runs by you. Makes sense. There’s a suspicion Rielly is playing through an injury and has been all year. But Rielly can really move.

“I guess we must have been changing or something, and he decided to do it himself,” said Oilers coach Dave Tippett. “But if you watch the video it’s unbelievable. He doesn’t ever look towards the goal, then all sudden he’s in front of it. That’s Connor being Connor.”

Yeah. McDavid has 24 goals and 69 points and leads the NHL in scoring, while leading all forwards in ice time. Teammate Leon Draisaitl, who had a goal and an assist, is second in points and minutes. Maybe they’re being ground to dust, Clydesdales pulling a wagon that’s too heavy. The Oilers entered the night eighth in the West, but they had been falling. Maybe they make the playoffs. Anyway, McDavid had the puck and all the time in the world.

“Can you give us an idea of what it is like to try to defend McDavid when he’s coming down on you with a head of steam?” asked a reporter afterwards.

“No, not really,” said Rielly. “I mean, it’s tough.”

Maybe nobody could have done anything. Maybe Zdeno Chara could have hooked McDavid, on size and stick length alone. Rielly had his stick in front of him. Maybe he should have backed into his own crease, but who does that? McDavid was still looking away.

And then suddenly McDavid snapped to his left like a snake, and in that moment it seemed for a second like Rielly’s skates stopped grabbing the ice. McDavid tapped the puck forward, shot into the space, caught up, deked and went high over Michael Hutchinson’s shoulder. He raised one finger and wagged it for a second. Rielly barely even laid a glove on him.

The Oilers won, in one of Toronto’s worst games under coach Sheldon Keefe. McDavid played 24:49, had eight shots on goal and 10 attempts, dominated the game territorially and scored the goal of the year.

“I was expecting him to be right on top of me before I knew it,” said Hutchinson, “but then he was able to kind of hesitate a little bit and got me back in a little deep.”

What could anyone have done? Oilers defenceman Oscar Klefbom sees McDavid in practice and games. He doesn’t know.

“If you’re going to start crossing over and stuff, he sees that right away,” said Klefbom. “He can go wherever he wants. That’s the unique thing with Connor, I think. There’s a lot of good skaters out there, but he controls the puck and he’s so good with the puck in that high speed.”

So what do you do?

“You cannot really make him go one direction because he’s so quick and (can move) sideways. You almost have to have a really good gap,” Klefbom began.

But how? How can you give McDavid enough space to be able to stay with him?

“No, you cannot really gap up,” agreed Klefbom. “You have to be lucky and almost make him go 50/50: go right, hopefully he’s gonna lose the puck or run straight into you. I’ve seen it multiple, multiple times now and it’s almost, if I’m out there, I’m just going to lay down and hopefully he’s going to lose the puck.”

McDavid allowed the game meant something extra to him. McDavid did win the world juniors here in 2015, and created magic with Auston Matthews on Team North America at the World Cup the next year. McDavid had never won here as an Oiler, though.

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“I mean, everyone wants to play well in their hometown and with lots of friends and family in the building,” McDavid said. “So it’s definitely fun to be able to get one … Yeah, it’s definitely special. It’s a building our team has struggled in. Personally, I’ve struggled in it before. It’s definitely fun to be able to come in here and get a big one.”

The last time against the Leafs the Tavares line outplayed him; this time, the shots were 12-3 in McDavid’s nine five-on-five minutes against Tavares, and shot attempts were 20-5. And McDavid was asked: What did you see? Did Rielly shift his weight at the wrong time? What was it?

“I can’t give up any of my secrets,” said McDavid, grinning again. “So, just tried to make a play.”

Look, years of McDavid’s career are being wasted in Edmonton, and by hockey in general. He hasn’t played in an Olympics, and unless the NHL decides to go to Beijing he won’t for the first 10 years of his career. Maybe the Oilers make the playoffs this season, dragged by McDavid and Draisaitl and their special teams in the league’s weakest division, for the second time in McDavid’s five-year career. But imagine him on a more complete team. These Oilers aren’t great. They might not even be very good.

He’s unbelievable, though. Sometimes you see something and realize you’ll never forget it. This was that. Praise be.

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