I don't think Mario was clearly above Crosby/McDavid in his 2nd season, if at all. Pretty close between the three IMO.
It is close, Lemieux did outscore Hawerchuck the 10th scorer by 34%, versus 26.3% versus Briere for Crosby and McDavid Tarasenko by 33%.
Oilers and Penguins made the playoff, in a era that it was rough and Lemieux did not, which show how bad the Pens were maybe more than him having less of a transforming season, the pens went from winning 16 to 24 to then 34 in Mario first 2 years, that huge.
In term of production, pretty pretty close, maybe a McDavid-Lemieux-Crosby style of order if you need to choose one, but Crosby-Lemieux probably a virtual tie:
| players | season | Season Length | Game played | Points | Elite Can average points | adjusted points |
| Connor McDavid | 20162017 | 82 | 82 | 100 | 64.7 | 149.1 |
| Mario Lemieux | 19851986 | 80 | 79 | 141 | 98.9 | 141 |
| Sidney Crosby | 20062007 | 82 | 79 | 120 | 83.9 | 138 |
In term of team improvement, from the team pre-draft to their second years
McDavid: .378->.427->.628
Lemieux: .238->.331->.475
Crosby.: .354->.354->.640 (and the 06 .354 was with the 3 pts games system....)
Crosby seem to have the biggest jump but Malkin-Staal arrived, Recchi-Scuderi played all the game, Fleury was getting better was still really young in 06, which more than compensate for loosing Palfy half a season, Leclair, etc..
Lemieux could have had the worst team improvement, but also had not only the worst team as a starting point but arguably worst management, the modern Pens had Lemieux involved, for all the Oilers joke, they were a modern serious hockey team that spent to the maximum of the cap, the 80s worst nhl teams were a bit Mickey mousy compared to that.
