Really? Can you dig one of those posts up? I find that hard to believe considering these two things are clearly true: McDavid had the most productive 5v5 season any player has had in 21 years and the Oilers were only 4 5v5 goals better than the median in 5v5 scoring. That says to me that the result MUST be that the Oilers were less productive than average apart from McDavid. Some of that is definitely defense scoring, but still.
If you did the work, I'd like to see it. The Oilers did not have much of a second line for most of that year. Letestu and Lucic production was largely 5v4.
Here is one of the posts from last year that covers up to the end of December 19th of of 2016. This is before the second line went "super nova" by the way. In fact this was before the Oilers actually took off.
I'll add to what you said in that thread. I looked at the #4-6 scoring forwards on each team and then all forwards out of the top 3. Here are the rankings:
Goals for the #4-6 ranked forwards.
Code:
Ana 30 1
NYR 30 2
Chi 28 3
Clb 28 4
TBL 26 5
Nas 24 6
Tor 22 7
Det 21 8
Edm 21 9
Mon 21 10
Pit 21 11
Van 21 12
Buf 20 13
Min 20 14
Ott 20 15
Was 20 16
Win 20 17
Cal 19 18
Car 19 19
Phi 19 20
Ari 18 21
Bos 18 22
NJD 18 23
Flo 17 24
StL 17 25
Col 16 26
NYI 16 27
Dal 15 28
LA 14 29
SJS 13 30
Points for #4-6
Code:
Clb 63 1
NYR 62 2
Ana 58 3
Tor 57 4
Min 54 5
Nas 53 6
Edm 52 7
Chi 51 8
Pit 50 9
StL 50 10
Mon 49 11
Van 48 12
TBL 47 13
Phi 47 14
Ott 45 15
Cal 45 16
NJD 45 17
Dal 45 18
Det 43 19
Was 43 20
Win 42 21
Car 42 22
Flo 42 23
Bos 39 24
LA 39 25
NYI 37 26
Buf 36 27
SJS 32 28
Ari 31 29
Col 31 30
Goals for all forwards outside of the top 3.
Code:
NYR 73 1
Clb 54 2
Ana 52 3
Pit 51 4
Nas 49 5
TBL 49 6
Min 47 7
Mon 47 8
Edm 46 9
Chi 46 10
Phi 46 11
Car 46 12
Van 43 13
Cal 43 14
Det 42 15
Dal 40 16
Win 40 17
NYI 40 18
Buf 40 19
StL 39 20
Was 39 21
Tor 36 22
Ott 36 23
Ari 36 24
Bos 35 25
SJS 34 26
Col 34 27
LA 33 28
NJD 31 29
Flo 31 30
Points for forwards outside of the top 3.
Code:
NYR 151 1
Pit 124 2
Clb 119 3
Mon 118 4
Cal 115 5
Min 112 6
TBL 111 7
Edm 111 8
Nas 105 9
Phi 105 10
Ana 102 11
StL 101 12
Van 100 13
Tor 100 14
Dal 98 15
Chi 95 16
Car 92 17
Det 92 18
NYI 92 19
Win 90 20
Was 85 21
Ott 84 22
NJD 83 23
Bos 82 24
LA 82 25
Ari 81 26
SJS 81 27
Flo 80 28
Buf 77 29
Col 65 30
The Rangers secondary scoring has been incredible. The Oilers are top ten but of course there is still a McDavid effect here to a degree. But even ignoring that they would probably still be top 10.
Let's compare them this year with the Pen's, a team that is seen as having excellent depth up front. You can simply look at the goals scored. At ES the Oilers forwards have been better than they get credit for. McDavid is so good that it tends to make everyone else look like they are doing nothing. But here are the Oilers top 12 goals scores by forwards at ES vs Pittsburgh
1) McDavid 35 (82) vs Malkin 28 (78) 35 vs 28
2) Nuge 18 (62) vs Kessel 22 (82) 53 vs 50
3) Draisaitl 16 (78) vs Crosby 20 (82) 69 vs 70
4) Maroon 14 (57) vs Sheary 16 (79) 83 vs 86
5) Strome 11 (82) vs Geuntzel 15 (82) 94 vs 101
6) Puljujarvi 10 (65) vs Hornqvist 14 (70) 104 vs 115
7) Khaira 10 (69) vs Sheehan 10 (73) 114 vs 125
8) Caggiula 9 (67) vs Rust 9 (69) 123 vs 134
9) Lucic 7 (82) vs Hagelin 9 (81) 130 vs 143
10) Kassian 7 (64) vs Reeves 4 (57) 137 vs 147
11) Slepyshev 6 (50) vs Simon 4 (33) 142 vs 151
12) Rattie 5 (14) vs Aston-Reese 4 (16) 147 vs 155
That's an 8 goal difference over the top 12 and from #4-#12 it is a 7 goal difference in total. And generally the Pittsburgh guys played more games.
The main difference between these two teams was on the pp where the Pens outscored the Oiler by a mile. But upgrading on Kassian is not going to change a pp.