Today, Edmonton Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch made a surprising statement about Connor McDavid after his dominant game against the Blue Jackets. Before last night's game against Columbus, Connor McDavid <a href='https://www.hockeylatest.com/nhl-team/edmonton-oilers/connor-mcdavid-calls-out-his-teammates-for-lack-of-energy-and-effort-during-recent-struggles' class='lien_marqueur' target='_blank' rel='noopener'>gave his team a fiery challenge to step up</a> after a recent stretch of disappointing performances. McDavid called out his teammates for lack of passion and effort in recent games and admitted he himself needed to be better. Last night, the Oilers came out firing on all cylinders led by McDavid who had a purely dominant two goal performance. Not only did McDavid score twice but both goals were absolute highlight reel quality garnering praise from analysts and fans alike. <div align='center' class='pl20 pr20'><blockquote class='twitter-tweet' data-lang='en'><a href='https://twitter.com/br_openice/status/1988091503647093176'><div style='border:1px solid #CCCCCC;border-radius:10px;padding:20px;width:300px;'>Loading from Twitter ...</div></a></blockquote></div> <div align='center' class='pl20 pr20'><blockquote class='twitter-tweet' data-lang='en'><a href='https://twitter.com/peteblackburn/status/1988096100012814404'><div style='border:1px solid #CCCCCC;border-radius:10px;padding:20px;width:300px;'>Loading from Twitter ...</div></a></blockquote></div> In the aftermath of this performance, Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch spoke to the media and echoed this praise even making a bold claim about McDavid's performance. <h3>Kris Knoblauch makes a bold claim after Connor McDavid's dominant performance</h3> In his comments today, Knoblauch admitted that the performance by McDavid was one of the best he has ever seen in the superstar's career. Knoblauch gives McDavid full credit for taking his game to another level last night and refusing to lose. Connor wasn't going to let us lose tonight. He was so focused on getting the job done. And, I've seen Conor rise to the occasion, play some tremendous games, and I'm not going to say this was his best game that I've seen him play, but under the circumstances, it's got a rate up there, just because he was so determined to get the job done. And, you know, he had an incredible night, two fabulous goals, but there was just so much determination to his game and he just willed the team to win. Throughout his career McDavid has been known for having a takeover ability to just completely control a game no matter the opponent. To this point in 2025-26 McDavid had not had those types of performances until last night against Columbus. Hopefully for the Oilers, McDavid has now found his game and can continue to dominate over the next several months as the Oilers look to get back into the Stanley Cup Playoff contender conversation.