First Star, Worst Star: March 6th, 2016

Spring is in the air, the last few reminders of winter are slowly melting away, and golf courses all across North America are preparing to be inundated with Edmonton Oilers. It’s also Sunday, which means it’s time for another edition of First Star, Worst Star! 

As if he needed ANY MORE accolades, but somehow Connor McDavid still continues to defy even the loftiest of our expectations. 

Rookie of the month honours for the second time this year (which also happen to be the only full two months of hockey he’s played this season)? CHECK!

Leading the ENTIRE NHL in scoring since the All-Star break? CROSBY CAN’T EVEN TOUCH CONNOR! 

Firmly entrenched in the top 10 of rookie scoring, despite playing less than half the games as almost everyone else on the list? Enjoy your Calder trophy Panarin. You’re like four years away from having to retire from hockey due to old age. 

And I’m sure we’ll never forget where we were when Connor ended the Eichel/McDavid debate once and for all. 

It’s almost unfathomable to think of what his ceiling may be. He’s only going to get bigger, stronger and most alarming of all FASTER as he transitions from wonder-teen to terrifying adult hockey player. It’s going to be a fun decade of Oiler hockey with Connor at the helm. 

First Gretzky, and now McDavid; no wonder the hockey gods hate us! (Get well soon Brandon Davidson)

Zac Rinaldo has always been a very frustrating player for me. He’s got speed to burn, a decent shot, and he hits like a truck. On paper he’s pretty much everything you want out of a bottom six player. Unfortunately for Rinaldo though, he seems to lack the ability to hit a player anywhere other than his head. Three days after being handed a 5 game suspension for a hit to the head of Cedric Paquette, and in his FIRST GAME in the AHL for the Providence Bruins, Rinaldo was back at it again with Kane Lafranchise (French for The Franchise) being the unwitting victim of another reckless hit. 

It’s been said ad nauseam, but this is the exact type of thing hockey as a whole is trying to get rid of. And I understand that unfortunately these types of hits are going to happen in a full contact game played at high speeds, but when a guy does it over and over and over and over again it’s not incidental nor an accident. We’re looking at Raffi Torres 2.0 right now, and how have things worked out for HIM lately? 

Rinaldo is now suspended indefinitely from the AHL, and if he were to be called back up to the NHL he would still have to serve all five games of that previously mentioned suspension. Maybe the Bruins can send him down the the ECHL where he could become the first player to be suspended from all three major North American hockey leagues at the same time! One can only dream. 

Smarten up Rinaldo! You’re 25 and seemingly one more bad hit away from a one way ticket to the KHL, and you DO NOT want to go to there!