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On TSN Overdrive in Toronto, sports broadcaster Kara Wagland repeatedly brought up the notion that McDavid would be joining Celebrini, his Olympic games line-mate in San Jose.

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Overdrive host Bryan Hayes suggested that San Jose was on the rise.

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Wagland then said– and kept repeating — McDavid would want in on that. “In two years, they (San Jose) get McDavid… I can’t believe more people aren’t talking about this, because the first thing I thought about, and I think we’ve talked about this before, when they played in the Olympics together, and you saw how much fun Connor McDavid was having playing with Macklin Celebrini, that was the first thing I thought about…”

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She continued: “They (McDavid and his wife Lauren) go to a warm weather place, smaller market. They’re not gonna care as much. They’re not gonna hammer you for being Connor McDavid. They’re already a competitive team. They’re gonna make the playoffs this year. They’re gonna be really good in two years.

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“Why wouldn’t you? If Edmonton does not progress, 100% he’s gotta get out of Edmonton…  I look at Connor McDavid, especially the last couple of years, and he just looks tired and dejected… Then you see the behind the scenes stuff in the locker rooms that gets released, and you’re like, man, he does not look like he’s having a whole lot of fun. When he was playing with Macklin in the Olympics, he looked like he was having some fun.”

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1. Could McDavid one day end up in San Jose? Sure. But that team’s path to success is uncertain, especially with some of the iffy, big money moves it made this summer, and also with the new extremely expensive market for young and talented players.

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If San Jose’s young aces like Will Smith, Sam Dickinson, Igor Chernyshov, Michael Misa and Ivar Stenberg turn out, they could be asking for $10 million-plus or $15 million-plus deals sooner rather than later.

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2. Of course McDavid loved playing with Celebrini in the Olympics. But he also loves playing with Leon Draisaitl in Edmonton.

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3. McDavid is also close to Darnell Nurse, but what are the chances Nurse will be on a team that wins the Stanley Cup? Jacob Trouba also signed new big money, four-year deal with Sharks.

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As hockey analyst Mike Johnsons said on Overdrive about Wagland’s McDavid-to-San Jose speculation: “I’m not sure that the defensemen, whether it was Darnell Nurse, Jacob Trouba, those are not guys that I would look at as a player and say, ‘They got those two, sign me up for a Cup run.'”

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2. Of course, it’s fine to speculate about any NHL player whose contract will be up in the next few years and where that player might end up. Folks in Toronto are used to such speculation. There was plenty around Mitch Marner, who ended up leaving Toronto. More speculation is coming with Auston Matthews, now in the final two years of his deal.

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Where commentators like Wagland lose me is when they try to read McDavid’s mind and his intentions based on him looking super serious or weary on the Oilers bench.

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If you think you can read McDavid’s intentions for the future by his game face or demeanour, you have utterly lost the plot. You see this bizarre mind-reading all the time in the political realm. Partisans and commentators believe they know the interior motives of politicians — and often giving the worst possible spin on a political leader’s hidden thoughts.

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I’ll suggest we know people by what they say and do. We have little idea what’s going on inside.

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McDavid signing the two-year deal at a discount was a huge boost to Edmonton, but it was also ambiguous because the deal was only two years. So folks are indeed free to speculate. It’s all part of the fun of sports. But if you want to be seen by reasonable people as a credible commentator, you will catch yourself whenever you engage in mind-reading and you will correct yourself at once. Not one of us is a mind reader.

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3. To give TSN Overdrive credit, the show does have some sensible commentators, such as host Bryan Hayes, who said of McDavid and the Oilers on the same episode: “And I hope he wins in Edmonton. I want to see that story be complete… I’ve been lucky enough to cover him and talk about him and watch him play. And he’s a blast to watch play. I’m rooting for the guy. I’m rooting for the Oilers to do well.”