Except this is exactly what to refuse to do. You refuse to look at the whole picture. Totals matter. Goals matter more than assists. This is established in the rules of the game(most goals wins). The record books (total goals, total points vs per game records) and awards (no primary assists award. No assists awards tie breaker is goals for Ross).
Rantanen in his contract scored more points and more goals and got way less. That is the whole picture. You try to make these ridiculous parsing out of PP goals and empty net etc. the full picture are the stats I present. Marner is better if you ignore the parts of the game rantanen is better at. Ok…..
You refuse to look at it. There is nothing to suggest that PP goals are worth less in contracts.
The whole picture is not whatever you want it to be. It’s kind of crazy. Maybe, just maybe you don’t know more than the record books, the rules, GMs. AI.
You literally laughed at a person for using AI….. but trust me bro about a study you did 5 years and 2 computers ago? It’s really silly.
Goals don't matter more than total points.
The top 10 all time lists has 2 players likely better goal scorers than play maker in OV and Bobby Hull.
Gretzky, Lemieux, Howe, Orr, Crosby, Mcdavid, Jagr all being better play makers and overall offemse generators than goal scorers.
If goals mattered the most then OV would be the GOAT or at least viewed as better than Jagr/Crosby all time when hes generally seen as 9/10 all time despite now all time leading 895 goals.
There being no assists award is a dumb exclusion and oversight by the league. I assume with gretzky previously holding all time pts, goals and assists records they didmt want to add another award after adding the rocket in the 90s.
Now that he doesnt hold all three, the NHL should create a trophy after Gretzky for most assists to recongize the best play makers in the league.
Now that Gretzky has officially lost the Goals record they could look to create that award to honor him and the purer playmakers of the game.
The ross+hart+lindsay already cover the best players in the league. With the best players usually being those who win or finish very high for these awards vs finishing high in the rocket only (OV this year is 3rd for the rocket but not a top 10 player in the league and Nylander is 2nd for the rocket but isnt a top 15 player in the league)
If goals mattered as much across the league we would see Matthews ahead of Mackinnon/Draisaitl/Kucherov for hart/lindsay awards.
Offense generation and production matters. Whether its primary, secondary, PP driven, 5v5 driven, 3v3, Empty net fueled etc, as long as a player is repeatedly producing amd is in a very high spot relative to his peers, the manner of his production split isnt important so long as its sustained over years of play.
The absolute best players produce consistently across scoring environments and in reg season vs playoffs too (big 4 players and makar for example remaining extremely productive come playoffs)
Marner vs Rantanen isnt about goals vs assists. They both have been top 10 or so in the league in pts and ppg since 2018-2019 season which shows both are elite/top end regular season players.
They are very similar producers in the reg season for their whole careers with Rantanen also killing It in the playoffs.
If you have two similar producing wingers, you would take the less physically challanged winger who has a repeated/sustained history of being extremely productive in the playoffs.