Thank you. Thank you so much. I don't understand why people don't get this. "Just play him more" is so frivolous, it has obvious diminishing returns. I mean, why not play McDavid 45 minutes a game?
It's interesting to look at and maybe it's useful to wonder if a guy is capable of moving up, but using it to evaluate players in different lines, teams, usage situations? Barf.
It would be really interesting to find the optimal minutes per game for a first line forward. That would require statiscal analysis I cant even think, because there are so many variables you'd need to account for.
But I think, without any stats to back it up, that the scoring and ice time in general follows an S-curve.