I think Buffdog was asking about Rantanen with and without MacKinnon - whether he was somewhat of a product of MacKinnon's greatness.
Looking at 5v5 for the two full season prior to this one (2022-23 + 2023-24) just to exclude his lackluster moping on the Canes and adjusting to different systems or whatever was going on this year:
| Rantanen | TOI | CF% | GF-GA | +/- | GF% | xGF% |
| with MacK | 1931:49 | 56.5% | 128-83 | +45 | 60.7% | 55.0% |
| w/o MacK | 794:03 | 47.9% | 34-42 | -8 | 44.7% | 47.8% |
If you look back a bit farther - like 2021-22, then he's great with MacKinnon (similar to above) but even better without MacKinnon. That was their Cup year. Had a deep team with Landeskog and Kadri, etc. Rantanen-MacKinnon-Landeskog was a hell of a dominant line, btw...and Rantanen without either of those guys on the ice was good, not great.
If you look at this year he's very similar to the table above with MacKinnon, and worse than the results without MacKinnon (44% CF, 11-11/50% GF, 36.5% xGF)...but it's a pretty small sample (<200 TOI) w/o MacK, and new systems, sulking and whining, etc.
TLDR: Last two years (and also this one) Rantanen hasn't looked very good without MacK. I think he's a good player, but maybe overrated because of how good he and MacK went together.
