Gary Bettman on Connor McDavid-Wayne Gretzky comparisons: This generation's poster child! | Get Up

Good to see you, let's start there with the Boston Bruins for those who didn't follow them all year, setting NHL records

this

year for most wins, most points, best regular season ever, what does that mean anything so for sport? It draws a lot of attention to the excitement, passion and greatness that our teams and our players display night after night, although there is a bit of the Jinx component because the teams that typically win the President's Trophy don't always win. win the Stanley Cup and now you know what happened is if they somehow managed to lose

this

series, everyone will blame us, blame us, blame this conversation for them, no, no, not at all, I'm not superstitious and I guess you are.

Neither is, although if you think about four years ago, when Tampa had what was then among the most notable regular seasons, they were swept by Columbus in the first round, but that doesn't seem to be the case because the Bruins came out quite a bit good last night even without his captain. We talked this morning again, so the Bruins are the story, they're the favorites and they're the better team. Did you stay up last night to watch the double overtime game we showed you? the final this morning here, Bobby Shoes and with a sensational decision in double overtime and we also showed the end of the Edmonton game last night and that brings us to Conor McDavid, who emerged.

He was watching one night and the conversation came up. In fact, one day he will challenge Wayne Gretzky to legitimately like the questionable name to be the greatest player in the history of the sport. That's the way they talk about him. You know, it's interesting because Wayne has always talked about the fact that records are made to be. He broke and has been excited about Alex Ovechkin's attempt and approach to set the all-time goals record. The good thing about all sports, especially ours, is how from

generation

to

generation

things evolve and players get better, stronger and focus on their health. and their skills and ways that when you and I were much younger were not what athletes were like and the other thing that happens is that generationally someone comes and becomes the new face of a league, we see it and this has been a league for Ovechkin and Sydney Crosby over the past generation is that Conor McDavid is ready to be that guy who is going to be the face of NH based on the regular season he's had and based on the way he's played the last few years, he's the

poster

boy for this generation. kid and it's ironic because he seems to be really emerging, you know, based on this season in a year where, for the first time since I can remember, we don't have OV or SID in the playoffs and he does it in Edmonton and Por Of course, fans will remember that's where Gretzky won his cups and that's where he made his greatness, but I'm old enough to remember when he got traded to Los Angeles and people said this is the greatest thing that could happen to this sport. .

And he did, he elevated the sport in broader ways. What is the impact of this player, this generational player, playing in Edmonton? I think particularly because our new media partners have been focused on all of our teams, not just the US teams, and that's a credit to the way that for example, ESPN has been programming and more and more people you see the magic that Conor McDavid does on the ice every night and you see the replays we saw last night where he was just skating through three defenders on the puck. and it's just incredible to watch him play, he's incredibly skilled, he's fun to watch and to the extent that the Oilers are on your schedule or the people at TNT should be watching and again, if you were watching him, you were watching a player that people he's legitimately comparing at this stage of his career to Wayne Gretzky real quick before I go uh everyone's talking in this town so we can talk about the Rangers Devils what does it mean to have that matchup in this market?

Well, besides the Islanders being in the playoffs, this is Hockey Central in terms of the metro area and it'll be fun to watch and we'll have a team from New York, New Jersey in the second round no matter what happens, so I think It will be a lot of fun and it is receiving, as I said, a lot of attention thanks for watching streaming Sports and premium content subscribe to ESPN Plus