Nathan MacKinnon, on par with the best in business?

[CanadienShark]

Kuch, Mcdavid and Mack are the top 3 forwards. Drai imo is a step behind

I've been a Draisaitl fan for years and now think he's a half step behind the top 3 of McDavid, MacKinnon, and Kucherov. Being in the company of (arguably better) Matthews, Barkov, etc. isn't so bad either.

 

[TruePowerSlave]

You realize winning a Cup is a team accomplishment right?

Shockingly many just don’t get that its a team sport

 

[Goose]

The whole point of this OP is saying that MacKinnon's production has been above 1A's for nearly 2 years now. How long does production need to be on par or better for us to agree there is no more 1A, but two 1B's, and then some 1C's or even 2's or however you want to throw around numbers/letters lol.

What I don’t get about all of this stuff is that people say that all that really matters is championships, and yet when we talk about stats, we pretty much only ever look regular season stats in these conversations, why is that?

If you take playoffs into account, which is what matters most, McDavid is still clearly the 1A.

Nobody is as explosive or dangerous as McDavid, and while MacKinnon has pulled neck and neck over that sample period for regular season production, which I’m sure is a MacKinnon-friendly sample period, McDavid just put up his 1,000th point at an all-time pace after another monstrous playoff performance, I don’t get how people can seriously say McDavid is not in a class of his own.

 

[Luigi Lemieux]

It's still McDavid, but there's not much of a gap between him and MacKinnon/Kucherov. All have been performing at a similar level the last two seasons.

 

[avsfan2189]

did MacKinnon also "decide" to start his career as a 50 point player?

see, the difference is McDavid has been a constant elite player since the day he stepped into the NHL in 2015, his consistency is what separates him from the pack

7 Hart/Lindsay trophies to MacKinnon's 2
5 Art Ross trophies to Mackinnon 0
1 Conn Smythe to MacKinnon's 0
1 Rocket Richard trophy to MacKinnon's 0
7 100-point seasons to MacKinnon's 2
a 100 assist season
a top 3 points finish in every NHL season except his rookie year (congrats to Nate for finally reaching the top 2)
a PPG player in each of his first 9 seasons

pretty neat MacKinnon has had a good calendar year though...cute story

the overall spirit of what you're saying is correct, mack simply doesnt have the hardware to have a huge talking point in his favour, but the 100 point seasons thing is a bit misleading; Mack has 3 other seasons of close to 100 points (99 points in 82, 93 points in just 69 games, 97 points in just 74 games). He also had 88 points in just 65 games in a season as well.

hypothetically he's had 6 seasons of 100+ point caliber performance based on pace and ppg, with this one about to be his 7th barring major injury.

up until just recent seasons, he was at one point I believe top 3 points per game all time in the playoffs, but even now ranks 5th all time among gretz, lemieux, mcdavid and drai (removing barry pederson by qualifying it as over 35+ games played in the playoffs)

 

[TruePowerSlave]

McDavid is still the best. His consistency in scoring dominance is unmatched and once the playoffs roll around the guy goes full hero mode.

 

[Goptor]

The fact that you are comparing him to McDavid and leaving out Kucherov and Draisatl is proof enough that McDavid is still the gold standard and everyone is being compared to him.

A good stretch by any of those 3 players and a weaker stretch by McDavid is enough to flip them though, which is why Kucherov won the Art Ross while McDavid had an early injury that made him miss 6 games.

 

[Murzu]

pretty neat MacKinnon has had a good calendar year though...cute story

Not one, but two. It's a big sample at this point.

 

[authentic]

Not one, but two. It's a big sample at this point.

It’s two years straight, strange how people are taking offense to this lol