Never seen him play but I do notice he’s a Jan birthday. Through in some early puberty ? and some of these 14 yolds are like men among little boys . No idea at all if this applies to him but we’ve seen it a million times .
he's actually undersized and has a lot of skill.
Although you are correct, McDavid and Gretzky are Jan birthdays, so its not like every single Jan bday falls off once their relative age difference diminishes vs their peers.
I get what you are saying, but in contrast to that I think I remember reading that the first 4 months of the calendar year had significantly more players than the last 1/3, so sometimes that advantage at an early age leads to lifelong success in the sport. That article was old though, like early or mid 2000s. Not sure about the distribution of bdays currently in the NHL