McDavid is
miles ahead of Panarin. Trying to shoehorn them into the same tier is just a wasted exercise so if you want to believe it, go for it but it's stupid and you should stop because I don't think you're stupid.
Fun fact: McDavid had 8 more points in last year's playoff run alone than Panarin has in 3 with the Rangers combined. Again there are levels to this game, they basically aren't even playing the same sport. One of them is one of the best to ever do it and a clear best player in the league right now. The other is not and has proven that he can't carry a team when it matters.
On the catering: I forget who had it (it may have been several people) but it was reported that Panarin refused to play with Kakko. Him getting off scot free and not facing any discipline for stupid play is well documented here.
This rest of this is utter nonsense and just a laundry list of the same excuses that have been made for this player.
I don't care who Guentzel plays with, HE ISN'T MAKING 11.6! Guentzel didn't have Crosby or Kucherov last year and he still had a better playoff run than anything Panarin has done in a Ranger uniform so you can miss me with this.
He can get the grace that Kucherov gets when he does this:
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But lets take other guys out of the equation and just focus on the Rangers - Panarin has been outproduced by: Kreider, Zibanejad, Fox and has also produced less than Trocheck in the time that they've been teammates (still holds true if you want to use Trocheck's. Once again, forget the other elite guys, he's been getting out done by his own teammates (Zibanejad has 11 more points than Panarin, that isn't insignificant.) 5v5 he's been outproduced by Lafreniere who hasn't even gotten top 6 minutes in 2 of the 3 runs (side note: Laf is the only ranger with a xGF% above 50% in their 3 runs combined. He also leads the team in p/60 at ES, people should probably cool it on trying to run him out of town.)
Also the "keyed on" and smothered argument is dumb. Firstly, do you think other teams just let the top players skate by unimpeded? No, they play through it and either they make shit happen or they don't (Panarin more often than not, does not.) Secondly, Panarin didn't draw Barkov, Zibnanejad did so its not like he was even facing the Panthers match up guys (Zibanejad also drew J.Staal the series before.) Panarin was getting owned by the Panthers 2nd and 3rd wave. Cherry picking his gwg's is cute though (2 of those 4 were basically insurance goals that just ended up turning into a GWG, but okay, he had 4 GWG's, what a stud.)
Lastly I'd check your math. Zibanejad and Trocheck both had more points than Panarin leading into he Panthers series. Trocheck (his line mate mind you) continued to outperform and out produce him in the Panthers series. If he can do it, why couldn't the elite player? They faced the same competition.
Ditto Lafreinere.
And no, it's not because they drew the attention of the Panthers. It's because those guys either went to the areas of the ice that he couldn't/wouldn't go to or were able to create something by themselves.
The supporting cast has actually more or less given you bare minimum production (at least relative to expectaitons) or better in both of their conference finals runs. Theres one guy in the top 6 who has drastically underperformed. I'll let you guess who that is.
(They could have beaten the Panthers even with Panarin doing what he did if they had an actual capable body on the top pair instead of Lindgren and just left Trouba on the bottom pair so it isn't all on him, but he himself didn't do enough to help push them through.)
Edit: Here is a report that Panarin didn't want to play with Kakko, it was from Carp but I think Vince and/or Brooks had it too. So no, I wasn't making it up.
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