Connor McDavid faced questions about the Olympic experience and whether he thought winning the Stanley Cup or Olympic gold medal would be this difficult before Wednesday’s game against the Anaheim Ducks.

The Edmonton Oilers captain faced the media for the first time since returning to the team, upon confirmation of being in the lineup.

He faced several questions about the Oilers’ current predicament, which led to a brief and tense interaction that went viral on social media Wednesday.

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"It starts with a big road trip here." After retuning from #MilanoCortina2026, Connor McDavid shares his outlook heading into the remainder of the #Oilers season. @Enterprise | #LetsGoOilers

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8:36 PM · Feb 25, 2026

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“This is a hard question, but. Stanley Cups found Gretzky and Crosby and those guys, and gold medals, and you’ve put yourself in position, and it’s not finding you. Did you think it would be this hard?” McDavid was asked by Sportsnet’s Mark Spector.

“That’s a nice question, thank you,” said McDavid in response, who paused.

“It’s disappointing,” he continued. “There’s no way around it. We could be sitting here having a totally different conversation if things had gone a little bit differently. It’s hard, it’s hard to win at any level, especially when we’re talking about the best and the very, very best in the NHL and the Olympics. The margins are very, very small. And we obviously saw that on Sunday, and we felt the effects of that here in Edmonton from time to time.”

Spector followed up: “You’re a pretty hungry guy. Can it make you hungrier?”

McDavid replied: “It’s all part of the process. I mean, that’s what it’s got to be. What other option do I have?”

This was McDavid’s first Olympics experience, and he broke the tournament record for NHLers at a single Games with 13 points. However, with the loss has come torrents of online criticism that want to brand McDavid as unable to win the “big one.” The noise has only been amplified after the Oilers lost back-to-back Stanley Cups to the Florida Panthers.

Canada won the 4 Nations Face-Off after McDavid’s overtime winner last February, but had to capture silver after Connor Hellebuyck’s record-breaking 41-save performance for the United States.

“It was very, very fast. I mean, this is what we asked for. This is the hockey has been missing. You see what it looks like at the very, very best. That’s the very best you’re gonna see. Those are two the best teams, probably in the world, that you can put together in the sport and playing together, playing for your country, playing for something very meaningful, that brings the best out of guys. And I think you saw that at everybody out of that game on Sunday,” said McDavid.

“Those moments are what we live for, to play in a game like that, to play at that level, at that pace, at that magnitude — that’s what it’s all about. As I said, it was fun to be a part of that game, and felt like we put ourselves in a really, really good spot, and gave ourselves every chance to win that game. For whatever reason, we didn’t.”

Michael Menzies is an Oilersnation columnist and has been the play-by-play voice of the Bonnyville Pontiacs in the AJHL since 2019. With seven years news experience as the Editor-at-Large of Lakeland Connect in Bonnyville, he also collects vinyl, books, and stomach issues.