The Flames need to be better against Connor McDavid in Game 2

The key to the Edmonton Oilers winning their second round series with the Calgary Flames is Connor McDavid. Simply put, #97 is the best player in the world and the straw that stirs the drink for the team in orange and blue.

The Flames had a pretty clear plan to shut down McDavid in Game 1, but the results were fairly mixed.

According to Natural Stat Trick, the Flames fed McDavid a fairly steady diet of their top defensive pairing (Rasmus Andersson and Noah Hanifin) and their top forward line (Johnny Gaudreau, Elias Lindholm and Matthew Tkachuk) at five-on-five, with McDavid playing between 7:22 and 8:25 against each of those five players. Besides that, the plan seemed to be to avoid having…