On the other hand McDavid has upped his points per game every year of his career. So 1.56 points per game over 82 games then would seem very achievable, as he was well ahead of that pace this year. I do agree that there is a good chance he gets injured somewhere along the line, but other than that I think he probably would top 130, perhaps by a lot.
I think much of it will depend on what Edmonton does to beef up their scoring depth. This year his highest scoring linemate at 5v5 was Puljujarvi, who wasn't even a half-point-per-game guy. They finally have the cap flexibility to make big changes there.
My point is that Kucherov had a similar pace as McDavid for a 56 game stretch in his season, but slowed down outside of it. It's easier to do it for 56 games than a full 82 games. If you want to isolate a 41 game stretch, Kucherov's best 41 consecutive games is actually 1 point higher than McDavid.
so - I get that McDavid's ppg has increased every year, but unique circumstances past season (Covid, north division) + shortened season make last year's increase a bit of an outlier, and not necessarily repeatable. And other than last season, he's actually never had a season where he paced for 130+ points - his best ppg was 1.52ppg, which translates to ~125 points.
I think he can do 130, but it'll probably be close to where he maxes out, and it'll be close. Passing it by "a lot" would be really fun to watch, but super unlikely.
Scary to think what McDavid would put up if he was on Tampa. They are stacked. To me, it's even more impressive considering the talent surrounding McDavid. Outside of Draisaitl he really does it all by himself. lol
It's never a bad thing to play with more talent of course - but it's always a bit of a trade off. McDavid gets a ton of ice time and gets relied on tremendously. On a much deeper team like Tampa, he'd be relied on a bit less, so there's a tradeoff there. Maybe he scores more on Tampa, but it's not a guarantee, and it's not certain how much more he'd score.