Edited Apr. 4 at 4:13 p.m.
Quoting: Leafsfan98
Oh... It's because Nylander's doing well... I get that
And don't forget, the Leafs were in WC1 at one point...
I don't think there's a bad option out of: Matthews, MacKinnon, Kuch and McDavid
I'm just pointing out the main items that are brought up to "split hairs" between these guys. It's probably the closest and with the most players of being worthy that I can recall in several decades.
The drumbeat on Kucherov is that he is 45 points farther ahead than anyone on his team. The opposite of that is McDavid-Draisatl; MacKinnon-Rantanen; Matthews-Nylander. What "helps" one guys case "hurts" the others. McDavid dragging his team from the precipice of disaster is impressive; Kucherov holding the Lightning in the mix is also; Matthews might be on that scale but not to the level of those guys. But then we can't also ignore that MacKinnon's elite consistency all year never allowed his team to slide that far down.
It is the most subjective thing at this point and none of these teams would be as good this year without these players.
I was curious about how they played against elite competition:
Vs Top 8 teams (not including their own of course):
Kucherov 15-21 36 pts in 20 games: 1.800 ppg
Panarin 11-14 25 pts in 19 games: 1.316 ppg
McDavid 3-18 21 pts in 17 games: 1.235 ppg
MacKinnon 8-12 20 pts in 17 games: 1.176 ppg
Matthews 12-10 22 pts in 21 games: 1.048 ppg
Pastrnak 7-8 15 pts in 17 games: 0.882 ppg
Vs Top 16 teams (not including their own of course):
Kucherov 29-44 73 pts in 39 games: 1.872 ppg
McDavid 12-53 65 pts in 36 games: 1.806 ppg
MacKinnon 20-37 57 pts in 36 games: 1.583 ppg
Pastrnak 18-32 50 pts in 40 games: 1.250 ppg
Matthews 26-22 48 pts in 40 games: 1.200 ppg
Panarin 20-27 47 pts in 40 games: 1.175 ppg
vs the "bottom 15" teams:
MacKinnon 27-43 70 pts in 39 games: 1.795 ppg
Panarin 25-38 63 pts in 36 games: 1.750 ppg
McDavid 17-44 61 pts in 36 games: 1.694 ppg
Kucherov 13-44 57 pts in 35 games: 1.629 ppg
Matthews 37-14 51 pts in 34 games: 1.500 ppg
Pastrnak 28-26 54 pts in 36 games: 1.500 ppg
I was really surprised at these results. This shows that Kucherov has been uniquely dominant against top level teams; McDavid is consistent across all levels but slight dip against the high end; and while all of them are still elite: Matthews, MacKinnon, Panarin and Pastrnak feast on the weak (as expected). Matthews goal scoring rate vs "good teams" vs "bad teams" is pretty stark (about half the rate).