Connor McDavid once again has the respect of the players in the NHLPA poll

The NHLPA released their ninth annual player poll, and Connor McDavid is once again one of the top names players regard highly.

Out of the nine categories he could have been ranked in, McDavid finds himself in seven of them. It says a lot about how special of a player he is when a poll conducted by 639 players has him a near lock to crack into the top five or better in all the categories he got featured in.

Some of the highlights include him getting nearly half of the votes of which forward someone would want on their team in a must-win game, having the highest percentage of votes for who is the best stick-handler, and finishing second behind Brad Marchand in the category of which player do you hate playing against but would love to have on your team.

The only other Oiler skater to get some recognition from the players is Leon Draisaitl, who got the third-highest number of votes at 8.96% of who is the best playmaker in the league. For reference, McDavid finished second in that category at 20.91%, behind only Nikita Kucherov. Additionally, Rogers Place was ranked second in the category of which arena has the best ice, losing out to Bell Centre in Montreal for a second year.

As far as X-Factors are concerned, there is no bigger one than #97, and the rest of the league seems to recognize that. No matter how many player polls are done, McDavid being near the top of the list has been a near constant since he entered the league back in 2015. It’s moments like this where we are reminded just how fortunate the Oilers faithful are to have him donning the Blue and Orange because he is far and away the most valuable player in the sport, and it’s not even close.

This is the same player in the midst of another stellar campaign. He has already become the first player since Wayne Gretzky to record three straight 120-point seasons, needs only one more apple to become the fourth player ever to register 100 assists in a season, and still has a chance to win the NHL scoring title despite a slow start to the year.

The only thing surprising about these polls is not that McDavid is all over them but that he isn’t a unanimous vote in all of the categories he could be listed in. Even still, the rest of the league knows that no one is more integral than him, and these latest player polls are proof of that.

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