Connor McDavid beyond compare: Oshawa Generals' D.J. Smith

Oshawa Generals coach D.J. Smith is the thread that ties Connor McDavid to his future Edmonton Oilers teammate, Taylor Hall.

Smith's time as a Windsor Spitfires assistant coach covered the era when Hall matured into a star at the world junior championship, a Memorial Cup MVP and a NHL first overall pick. It also covered the span when another singular talent at the OHL level, current Nashville Predators defenceman Ryan Ellis, won WJC gold as a underage player and later carried off OHL player-of-the-year honours, which McDavid will shortly.

And absolutely none of that is relatable to drafting a game plan to the dim the lights on The McDavid Show in the OHL final against the Erie Otters.

"I think Connor's a different player than Taylor," says Smith, whose team hosts McDavid and the Erie Otters in games 1 and 2 of the best-of-7 final on Friday and Saturday. "Certainly, after having Taylor his whole career in Windsor, I think you've got a different player, different elements to their games. At the end of the day there's a reason you're the number-one player in the world — your compete level is so much higher than everyone else's. That's really what it comes down to. You''ve got to be able to match that in order to be able to think about shutting a guy down. You've gotto bet willing to compete at an outrageous level, with a guy like Connor or Taylor or one of the elite players in the world.

"It really is outlandish," Smith adds in reference to McDavid having 42 points in 15 OHL playoff games, well ahead of second-leading scorer Nick Ritchie of the vanquished Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds (26 in 14) and Oshawa's top gun, New York Islanders first-rounder Michael Dal Colle (25 in 15).

"You're looking at, he's like 20 points ahead of our leading scorer Michael Dal Colle, who's a very good player. Going into the playoffs I don't think there was a person who didn't pick Sault Ste. Marie to win it all and he went in there and took them apart. You have to take your hat off. I don't think at this point anyone thinks anyone can stops him. We have to find a way to be above the puck all over the ice. I don't think I'm smarter than anyone else. I'm sure everybody has tried that as well."

One small kernel of McDavid's personality that has slipped out is that, in the manner of the great ones, he's always looking to prove doubters, real or imagined, wrong for any perceived slight. That surfaced during the world junior, where after being out 40 days with the hockey world's most famous metacarpal injury, he gradually recovering his timing and spatial sense and improved with each game of the tournament.

His point production has gone up with every round of the playoffs, reaching 2.8 so far. McDavid's also content to claim underdog status for the Otters, who have a younger lineup than the Generals.

"For us, going in to play the Soo, a lot of people had us pegged as the underdog," he says. "We kind of just rallied around that. We were able to get through and for all of us, really, this is our first chance at doing something really special in Erie.

"Oshawa was the No. 1 team in the country for most of the season. I think a lot of people have us pegged as underdog. That's a situation we're okay with. It kind of gives us something to rally around [again]."

It's plausible that the Otters might have overachieved while dispatching the Greyhounds in six games in the Western Conference final. McDavid and the Otters' high-end forwards such as Buffalo Sabres prospect Nick Baptiste and rookie Alex DeBrincat, along with complementary forward Remi Elie, his regular left wing, just got on the same wavelength. Concomitantly, repeating their 10-for-20 power-play effort might be difficult, although the Generals are down a key penalty-killing defenceman, Will Petschenig (broken arm).

"It's exciting when you're able to get a couple of goals and start rolling," McDavid says of the Soo series. "But we can't be too happy, the job's not done."

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.