a couple of years ago, with his 2018 art ross and him having that insane march and *almost* challenging kucherov toward the end of 2019, i wondered if mcdavid's second half production were just garbage time points. but after what we saw this spring, i'm looking back at his monster stretch runs and what you see is he goes off whether he's in a playoff race or not.
i think the more likely explanation is that he's just flat out a superior athlete, which is pretty undeniable, and at points in the season where fatigue and nagging injuries are slowing other people down, he stands out even more because he's still going at october speed.
if you look at the stretch run of this season, when he scored three points a game for two weeks and averaged two points/game over two months, sure he destroyed post-COVID vancouver (14 points/5 games). but he destroyed the jets just as badly, 13 points/5 games.
if you look at his first MVP year, on march 12, he's two points ahead of kane in the scoring race, just three points ahead of crosby and four over malkin (and well behind both in points/game). the oilers are 35-24-9, and while i don't know where they are in the standings (is there a way to look that up? i don't know how) that's a 95 point pace. 95 points would have squeaked them into the playoffs with a one point cushion over the 9th place team.
after that game, mcdavid wins all the trophies with a 25 point in 14 game run. more importantly, the oilers go 12-2-0. they finish with 103 points and come within a win of catching anaheim for first in the division (whom they lost to 4-3 during that stretch run, three point game by mcdavid). the team they played and had home ice advantage over in the first round, san jose, was 41-20-7 on march 12.
all to say, there were real stakes in those stretch run games where mcdavid went off. i mean, this is the time of year when the games get *more* competitive right?
