People dreaming about Rantanen are probably the type of fans who just use basic stats for player evaluation. Yeah he is considered a superstar and got 100+ pts twice, but:
1) he has played LOTS of 5v5 minutes with Mackinnon and Makar on a team that's oriented to maximise usage of talent of their most offensively skilled players to outscore opponents because they often don't have good enough goaltending and/or team defense to win games like Maurice Panthers since last season. Rantanen has played 15-17 minutes per night 5v5 in the last few seasons, while our best forwards usually play 13-14 5v5 minutes. And Rantanen 5v5P/60 rates are actually... quite similar to Verhaeghe.
2) He has significant edge in PP points to Verhaeghe, while also playing 80% of PP time, spending most of it with Mackinnon and Makar on consistently excellent PP unit. Our best forwards get 60-70% of PP time.
3) He has played a lot of minutes in COL against empty net, and got so many points there. While again, playing with Makar and Mackinnon - and something makes me think that the latter is the biggest driver there.
4) He is not a two-way forward by any means, not a speedy player, and his forechecking qualities are nothing special.
I would've like getting Rantanen if 1) team had more significant drop in offensive skill after Barkov, Tkachuk, Reinhart 2) there weren't any questions about how he would fit there considering system and role 3) he was ready to extend at 10M*8 max.
