How has he not seperated himself from the pack? He is 95th all time in points, the only active players above him are tavares (who mcdavid will pass by the end of the season), giroux (who he will most likely pass by the end of the season), stamkos, kopitar, malkin, kane, crosby, ovechkin. Everything those players above him have are 10 years more in the league.
Of his peers in which he entered the league with or around, there is nobody close to him. Next closest active player is marchand 64 points back, then mack at 74 points back.
No matter what stat you use, those players full careers which started 2 years earlier then mcdavids or the stats since mcdavid entered the league. There is a massive gap between the 3.
To add, since mcdavid entered the league he has a 142 point lead over the next closest player, which is Draisaitl. Then mack 179 points back. Then kuch 193 points back.
For this to be a battle, then mcdavid would need to miss an entire season just for those players to get within striking distance. And some of them it would need to be a season and a half.
And about the not doing enough yet to be placed in the top 4, well obviously as he hasn't even played 1000 games yet. But he is well above his competition and is pacing to be the 2nd player in nhl history to reach 2000 points. And he is on pace to only do that in 1300 games. 100+ games less then gretzky played, 400 less then jagr,