Connor McDavid was supposed to rescue the Oilers. He’s almost there.

McDavid was an 18-year-old with the hopes of a sputtering franchise resting on his shoulders. Despite having the first overall pick in the 2010, 2011 and 2012 drafts, Edmonton hadn’t made the playoffs since 2006, when it lost in the Stanley Cup finals. Considered a generational prospect, one of the best the hockey world had ever seen, McDavid was expected to be the savior.

“It’s been impressive, really, since he stepped in here as an 18-year-old,” Edmonton forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, the first overall pick in 2011, said Friday. “One of the most hyped — I mean, the highest-expectation player in a long time. I can’t imagine. Not quite the same for me. There was expectations when I came in, but of course, he’s on a different level.”

It was not, by any measure, a seamless path. McDavid’s talent and skill were evident instantly, but the Oilers made the playoffs in only one of McDavid’s first four seasons — a second-round exit in 2017 — and didn’t get past the second round until 2022, when they were swept by the eventual champion Colorado Avalanche in the Western Conference finals.

In 2023, it was another second-round exit, this time at the hands of the eventual champion Vegas Golden Knights. And while McDavid’s individual ability was never questioned, speculation began that it might never work out for McDavid in Edmonton and the franchise might never get it all the way right.

Those whispers appeared as if they would be proved correct at the beginning of this season. On Nov. 12, the Oilers were 31st of 32 teams in the NHL, with just three wins in 13 games. That day, General Manager Ken Holland fired coach Jay Woodcroft and installed Kris Knoblauch, who was behind the bench for the Hartford Wolf Pack in the American Hockey League.

Before getting the job in Hartford, Knoblauch coached the Erie Otters in the Ontario Hockey League, which just so happened to be where McDavid played junior hockey. McDavid played for Knoblauch for three seasons, on his path from a 15-year-old with enormous hype to a future franchise cornerstone in Edmonton.

“It’s been a really long time, obviously,” McDavid said at the time. “I thought he was great in junior. … He’s someone that I’m looking forward to working with.”

When Knoblauch was hired, McDavid had just 10 points in his first 11 games of the season — pretty good for most players but not for him. He finished the regular season with 132 points in 76 games, meaning he scored 1.88 points per game the rest of the way.

At his best, McDavid is a supernova, the kind of player who can take over a game in a sport in which players are on the ice for less than a minute at a time and aren’t supposed to be able to do it all themselves. After shaking off his tepid start, he hasn’t slowed down in the deepest playoff run of his NHL career.

At the time of year when games get tighter and scoring drops, McDavid has five goals and 26 assists for 31 points in 18 playoff games.

“He’s a really, really good player,” Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov said. “He’s an exceptional talent, for sure. Everyone knows how good he is.”

Oilers teammate Leon Draisaitl added: “There’s certain things in certain moments where there’s only one player in the world that can make that happen. And I think we can all agree on that.”

One of those moments was McDavid’s opening goal in Game 6 of the Western Conference finals, when he attacked the goal from the left, slowly dragged the puck past a Dallas defender and then flipped it into the net backhanded.

Singular skill from a singular player in a critical, high-pressure moment. Edmonton beat the Stars, 2-1, in that game, despite getting outshot 34-10. McDavid scored one goal and had the primary assist on the other to lead his Oilers, the team he was called upon to save nearly a decade ago, back to a place they haven’t been since he was 9 years old.

“He wants to be the best that he can be,” Nugent-Hopkins said. “From the time that he was 18, he stepped in here, and we relied upon him to be a leader, not just on the ice but off the ice. I know that adds a toll to it, too. It’s been impressive and a lot of fun to watch him throughout his career.”

When McDavid sat down for his media availability Friday afternoon, nearly a dozen cameras and hordes of reporters were waiting for him across the table. McDavid is typically unflappable and poised with the media, if not overly friendly or forthcoming, and that trend didn’t change on the eve of his first Stanley Cup finals game.

The NHL’s biggest star, who does things on the ice no others can match and is four wins away from completing what the Oilers hoped he would do when they drafted him nine years ago, just wanted to skip ahead to the part where he gets to play hockey.

“Just excited. Excited to get the madness all over with,” McDavid said when asked how he’s feeling. “Obviously today’s a busy day for everybody, but once it’s over with, it’s just going to be hockey.”