MacKinnon's Career Trajectory... Any Comparables?

[I Hate Blake Coleman]

I mean he was the Calder winner as the youngest player in the NHL and then proceeded with to be even better in the NHL playoffs as an 18 year-old - so, I think the narrative that he took a while to get going isn’t exactly true. He was also a 97 point player in his age 22 season (when scoring wasn’t quite as high).

Certainly there was a blip there in his age 19-21 seasons (also coinciding with the only 3 times the Avs have missed the playoffs in his career) - so it’s really more a really hyped prospect who was immediately everything and more at 18 but then flatlined for a few seasons before getting back on his initial trajectory.

He really broke out once Duchene was traded. He became the guy.

 

[SeanMoneyHands]

A good comparable to MacKinnon is Joe Sakic. Though Joe never had the speed that Nathan has but both have deadly accurate wristers.

 

[Breakfast of Champs]

Is makar not relevant to mackinnon's super-peak?

He was hart runner up at age 22 pre makar.

I think he helps the avs a lot and thus mackinnon, but mackinnon was going to be a superstar with or without makar

 

[Joemoe]

Doesn't surprise me the player he has become, even when the Hawks were good in his early years he was one of those players that always made me nervous when he was on the ice.

 

[IWantSakicAsMyGM]

Is makar not relevant to mackinnon's super-peak?

He certainly doesn't hurt. But MacKinnon scored at a 107 point pace (97 in 74) 2 years before Makar joined the team, and was consistently at a 110 or 111 point pace for Makar's first 3 seasons. Then, the year after the won the Cup, with Makar only playing 60 games due to injuries, Mack put up 111 in 71 games (128 point pace). Last year, Makar was only slightly more productive than during the Cup year (4 more points), but Mack put up 140. I'm not seeing a lot of connection between Makar's production/play and Mack taking this next step. To me, it seems more like the Cup run helped him learn how to be successful in this league, and he's adjusted some parts of his game accordingly.

 

[Regal]

I don’t think his initial trajectory was that unusual. He came into the league as a young rookie at 18 and was 34th in scoring, which would basically be PPG today, and showed signs of being the player he is today with a big playoff series. He experienced some growing pains the next couple years but was still a better player than he gets credit for. He was 66th among forwards in points per game over those three years, so he was at worst a good second liner. He made a huge jump in his 5th year but he was still only 22 and made some changes to his training and diet. While MacKinnon is a toolsy player who was pretty developed physically at 18, I think he had to still develop physically to fully play his power-speed combo game, which is something someone like Lindros didn’t have to to the same extent.

I think the unusual bit is taking him game to another level last year at 28. That’s unusual in general let alone for a player who was already one of the best in the game. I think it’s still tbd if it’s a true new level though, or just a spike year, which wouldn’t be all that weird. Kane’s spike Art Ross was at 27. While he is leading the league in point this year, I think it’s more in line with the rest of his prime. Visually he hasn’t been as good since a strong start, his pace is actually in line with 22-23, and his goals are down and secondary assists and empty net points are up.

 

[Plastic Joseph]

I don’t think his initial trajectory was that unusual. He came into the league as a young rookie at 18 and was 34th in scoring, which would basically be PPG today, and showed signs of being the player he is today with a big playoff series. He experienced some growing pains the next couple years but was still a better player than he gets credit for. He was 66th among forwards in points per game over those three years, so he was at worst a good second liner. He made a huge jump in his 5th year but he was still only 22 and made some changes to his training and diet. While MacKinnon is a toolsy player who was pretty developed physically at 18, I think he had to still develop physically to fully play his power-speed combo game, which is something someone like Lindros didn’t have to to the same extent.

I think the unusual bit is taking him game to another level last year at 28. That’s unusual in general let alone for a player who was already one of the best in the game. I think it’s still tbd if it’s a true new level though, or just a spike year, which wouldn’t be all that weird. Kane’s spike Art Ross was at 27. While he is leading the league in point this year, I think it’s more in line with the rest of his prime. Visually he hasn’t been as good since a strong start, his pace is actually in line with 22-23, and his goals are down and secondary assists and empty net points are up.

This is true - people don't realize how good MacKinnon was at 18 years of age. Someone tried to tell me last year that Bedard was ahead of MacKinnon at the same age but I disagree, scoring was way down. You can say he had better teammates, sure - but MacKinnon was driving the play a lot of the time, watch that Minny series and you can see he was already capable of taking over a playoff series in the DPE at 18 years of age. His talent and potential to be the player he is now was already evident.

He basically fell into a 3 year sophomore slump after that which also coincided with injuries, being on the worst team in the league, and losing all of his confidence. The thing is and like you said, he was still only 22 during his 5th season so even though some felt like he had been around for a while and was likely the player he was going to be - in reality he was actually just scratching the surface of who he could become. Once the team improved, and he got his confidence back the sky was the limit. Obviously a large spike in goals leaguewide helped him get to his 140pt peak, but those who actually paid attention saw a player from ages 19-21 with immense potential in a brutal situation.

 

[The Panther]

It is kind of an odd trajectory (I also noted this on the History forum recently). I suppose Guy Lafleur is a reasonable comparable over the Flower's first nine seasons. Thereafter, he started falling off notably, which MacKinnon hasn't -- quite the opposite.

I mean, players' trajectories are hard to predict. Mark Messier was passed over by every NHL club two or three times before Edmonton selected him. He then retired as the 2nd-top scorer in NHL history. Ray Whitney never scored more than 65 points up to age 26, and then he later retired with over 1000. Ron Francis only once scored more than 90 points (93, to be precise) during the whole 1980s, but then had three 100+ point seasons in the 1990s.

 

[ijuka]

His career trajectory is pretty normal.

16-17, the Avalanche was awful. They got 48 points. Hard to score many points on such a team. 17-18 they made the playoffs. 17-18 was his 22yo season, which is a pretty reasonable time to truly break out.

 

[qc14]

If you look at other players with weird progressions, the only forwards I can think of right now are Dylan Strome, Clayton Keller, maybe Tage Thompson depending where you think Tage's true ability might be. There might be others, if so please bring them up. Everyone has career years at times but MacKinnon's entire trend line changed in his fifth year in the league

Strome and Keller are good comps at obviously a lower level than MacKinnon. Much better than you remember their rookie year, somewhat plateaued/declined for the next four, all of the sudden found a new level ~age 25.

Tage is a real unicorn in that going into his breakout season at age 24 no one had ever pegged him as an elite scoring 1c. He hadn't shown it at the USNDTP, UConn, the AHL, or the NHL. MacKinnon at least had both the pedigree as a prospect and the really elite rookie season.