There was a moment on Monday afternoon at the Hershey Centre when Connor McDavid, the Newmarket-raised hockey prodigy, offered another in a line of glimpses into why he is, in many eyes, the best player not yet drafted into the National Hockey League.

McDavid, the 16-year-old centreman for the Ontario Hockey League’s Erie Otters, was battling for possession behind the opposing net, and the pursuit didn’t appear to be going well. He was down on one knee at one moment. He looked as though he’d lost the puck the next. But suddenly, with the help of an arriving teammate, he seized the puck and left a defender in his wake. McDavid thrusted hard toward the front of the net and faked a near-side wraparound that froze the goaltender. But instead of futilely jamming the puck toward the well-covered near post — a tiresomely worn-out move that continues to be practised by lesser players — McDavid smartly kept moving hard and fast toward the far post. The goalie could not recover. Ditto the defence. And McDavid calmly hooked a goal into a gaping hole.

If it seemed like something rare, a unique moment of athletic genius, it probably was. But when McDavid was asked about the play later on, as the Otters prepared to leave the rink with a 7-0 win over the Mississauga Steelheads, he pointed out that he’d potted a similar marker with bigger stakes.

“I scored one like that in the U18 (world) championship in the quarter-finals (this past summer),” McDavid said. “It’s pretty funny how it worked out.”

It was all fun and giddiness in the Otters locker room on Monday. The low-profile franchise, which has missed the playoffs or lost in the first round for eight straight seasons, is off to a 7-2-1 beginning thanks in part to the work of two Connors — both McDavid and McDavid’s right winger and Maple Leafs draft pick Connor Brown, who currently sits atop the OHL scoring chart with nine goals and 22 points in the opening 10 games. (McDavid, who had a goal and an assist on Sunday, has four goals and 15 points so far).

Said the 19-year-old Brown of McDavid: “To get to play with him, it’s a bit of an honour. You definitely learn from him, even if he’s three years younger. He’s pretty special.”

Sherry Bassin, the Otters’ GM, acknowledged that when Erie comes to town “they know (McDavid’s) name better than they know ours.” Even the Steelheads were not above paying homage to an esteemed opponent.

“When he comes out of the corner with the puck, it’s almost like he gains some sort of superhuman strength,” James Boyd, the Mississauga head coach, said of McDavid in the lead-up to the game. “He takes it to the net like a guy who’s six-foot-five and 225 pounds with skill. And if there is a sliver of light, he will take that puck to the net just like a Sidney Crosby.”

To clarify some key facts, McDavid is listed at six feet, 185 pounds. And Crosby, of course, is the acknowledged best player on the planet who once said that watching McDavid play “reminded me of myself.”

If hockey prodigies are all unique, lately they appear to be more and more numerous. On Monday, for instance, two of the four players who’ve been granted exceptional status to play in the OHL as 15-year-olds were plying their trade. One was McDavid, now in his second year in Erie and at times already looking as though he’s too good for the competition.

“There’s nights when this level looks below him now,” said one NHL scout on Monday.

The other exceptional-status recipient was Sean Day, the Michigan-raised Canadian citizen who is playing his rookie season with the Steelheads as a 15-year-old defenceman.

Bassin called Day’s skating stride “the best I’ve seen since Paul Coffey.” But there are some who believe that Day was a reach as an early-entry candidate, citing the fact he was the first exceptional-status recipient not to be selected No. 1 overall. (The other two players to come into the league a year early, after undergoing a rigorous screening and scouting process by Hockey Canada, are John Tavares, now a Hart Trophy candidate of a centre for the New York Islanders, and Aaron Ekblad, a defenceman who led the Barrie Colts to the OHL final last season.)

On Monday, Day showed both his immense skill and his considerable greenness. He tried a wind-it-up end-to-end rush that was interrupted when he ran out of room over the opposing blue line and gave the puck away. He turned it over a handful of other times, too; the OHL’s learning curve, especially for newbie defencemen, is steep. But the way he generated speed out of his own end, which appeared to come easily and instantly, was eye-popping.

Day was asked about the comparisons to Coffey as he applied post-game ice to a sore ankle in the Steelheads trainer’s room. He offered the only correct response.

“(Coffey) played in the NHL and he’s a Hall of Famer — I’m not close to that yet, so I won’t compare myself to that,” he said.

McDavid, after a post-game hug from his agent, Bobby Orr, planned to spend Monday evening having Thanksgiving dinner at his family’s home in Newmarket before waking early Tuesday to both prepare for a 16-year-old rite of passage — his driver’s test.

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“I’m pretty nervous for it. I don’t think I’m going to sleep very much,” McDavid said. “(The test) is at 8:30 (a.m.). And I’ve got a two-hour lesson before that. So it’s up early and I’m going to be sleeping behind the wheel. You might want to stay off the road.”

The motorists of Newmarket have been warned. Crosby and the rest of the world’s finest players won’t have to check their rear-view mirrors in earnest until 2015, when McDavid will be eligible for the NHL draft.

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