Edmonton Oilers’ Connor McDavid is pictured during the warm-up prior to facing the Vancouver Canucks before Sunday’s game at Rogers Arena. Photograph by: BEN NELMS , THE CANADIAN PRESS

National Hockey League superstar Steve Stamkos declared before Connor McDavid played his first game that the 18-year-old was the better player. Already.

Vancouver Canuck general manager Jim Benning, who has scouted for 20 years and knows about such things, said McDavid is the best prospect he has ever seen. And Benning saw Stamkos, Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin, John Tavares and others.

So while McDavid may be a teenage rookie in the best league in the world, nobody sees him that way. Except, sometimes, when he plays.

The Edmonton Oilers’ McSavior, this once-in-a-generation talent, played his first NHL game in Vancouver on Sunday in his team’s 2-1 overtime win against the Canucks.

McDavid was invisible for one shift. Then on his second shift, he sifted through Canuck defenceman Luca Sbisa, using the boards to play a give-and-go to himself, then spotted linemate Nail Yakupov streaking into the high slot. Yakupov one-timed McDavid’s perfect pass past Canuck goalie Ryan Miller to make it 1-0 on an Oiler power play at 3:23 of the first period.

While Sbisa looked for his underthings, everyone at Rogers Arena should have been looking for their camera-phones to record what was a perfect introduction for McDavid — the first bookend to what should be a long, productive rivalry against the Canucks in the Pacific Division.

McDavid is a special player, even if he hasn’t looked that way during each of his first few steps in the NHL.

I mean, we’re six games into his career and McDavid isn’t even leading the league in scoring yet. How can we measure him against Wayne Gretzky and Gordie Howe when McDavid doesn’t measure up to Kyle Okposo in October?

McDavid will has a ways to go if he’s to win the Hart Trophy and well as the Calder this season.

It took him three games to score his first NHL goal (and point) in Dallas. Then he returned to Edmonton and in his Oilers’ home debut went pointless in minus-three. His two-goal, three-point game in his first NHL victory, Edmonton’s 5-2 win Saturday in Calgary, may or may not constitute McDavid’s breakout game because the bar, as we’ve said, is rather high. Maybe he needs to score five goals in one night for it to be considered his breakout game.

Certainly, McDavid wasn’t nearly as good Sunday against the Canucks as he was Saturday against the Flames.

But his assist, after Sbisa stepped up on him aggressively as McDavid carried the puck in the Canucks’ zone, was a moment of brilliance. You won’t still be seeing it on highlights shows 10 years from now, like you will Canuck Daniel Sedin’s shocking miss in the third period when the former scoring champion used a lob wedge instead of a putter and put a puck over an open net from three feet away.

But in Vancouver, if you love hockey and track history and McDavid is even half as good as he is projected to be, you’ll probably remember the turnstyling of Sbisa and set up for Yakupov.

“Yak’s a pretty good shooter, so when you get the puck in his hands, most times it goes in,” McDavid said in his soft-spoken monotone. “We pre-scouted them, obviously. That’s kind what they’re penalty kill is like ... they wait for you to get to the blueline and then they make their hard stance. You can kind of expect that. I just tried to get it deep and go from there.”