For those who like knowing how much each player contributed to their team’s offensive production and where each team ranked in goals for the season:
Sakic:
118 points on 270 Colorado goals (4th most in the league) 43.7%
Thornton:
33 points on 81 Boston goals (3.12 GPG with him on team, 2.66 GPG without him)
92 points on 203 San Jose goals (2.58 GPG without him on team, 3.50 GPG with him)
125 points total on 284 goals (1 shootout goal subtracted, the combined total would be 4th most in the league) 44.0%
McDavid:
132 points on 292 Edmonton goals (2 shootout goals subtracted, 4th most in the league) 45.2%
Close no matter how one slices it. Factoring in the context of McDavid playing injured all season and missing 6 games, and still doing what he did probably makes him the most impressive, but I’m sticking with Thornton because he won the hardware and had such an extreme effect on his team’s production.