but Forsberg played in a much lower scoring era.
Yes and no. Forsberg’s first couple years weren’t low scoring, and even during parts of the DPE, the number of PPs means that star players were scoring more relative to the league.
Regardless, using MacKinnon’s first few years brings his numbers down far more than the era did for Forsberg. Since 17-18 in his age 22 season, minus this year, he has 442 points in 338 games for a PPG of 1.31. Forsberg’s PPG from his age 22 season in 95-96 to his last year in his first Colorado stint in 03-04 was a near-identical 1.30 (691 in 533). The league average GPG during MacKinnon’s period is 2.98. The league average GPG during Forsberg’s period was 2.76. Adjusting Forsberg’s PPG to MacKinnon’s period would give a PPG of 1.40, or an extra 7 points per 82.
This is relatively minimal in itself, but moreso when we consider, like I whore above, the fact that scoring tended to be more concentrated at the top in the DPE. For instance, in 98-99, the top 10 players in terms of points per game (Jagr, Selanne, Sakic, Lindros, Forsberg, Fleury, Kariya, LeClair, Yasmin, Demitra), averaged 1.28 PPG, in a league where the average GPG was 2.63. Last year, with league average GPG at 3.11, the top 10 in PPG (McDavid, Kucherov, Matthews, Huberdeau, Gaudreau, Draisaitl, MacKinnon, Marner, Kaprizov, Barkov) had an average of 1.40. So despite an increase in league scoring by 18%, the top 10 in PPG only increased their scoring by 9%. It’s a trend we see throughout the dead puck era, and likely cuts Forsberg’s slight point advantage down further.
Also, league scoring doesn’t affect scoring placements, and as I also wrote, MacKinnon is 3rd in scoring and tied for 3rd in points per game over those 5 years. Forsberg over that time frame is 5th in points and 3rd in points per game (2nd if you take away Lemieux). I don’t think there’s a huge gap between them in terms of production when comparing primes, and it’s certainly way closer than looking at career numbers.
