It's not the worst teams in each division that make the difference. It's the complete lack of a very good/elite defensive team in the North.
The East still has Boston and the Islanders, the top two teams in GA/GP since the start of 2018-19. They also have Pittsburgh, the 11th best team
The Central has Dallas, Carolina, Tampa, and Nashville who have the third, fourth, fifth and 10th lowest GA/GP since 2018-19. Even lowly Columbus is 12th best over that time.
The West has Vegas, Colorado, Arizona and St Louis. 6, 7, 8, 9 in GA/GP since 2018-19.
The highest ranked team from the North over that period is Calgary, at 13th.
Maybe this doesn't definitely prove that the North is weak, but there's literally nothing that proves they aren't weak.
What exactly do team stats from 2018 have to do with the teams allowing goals this year?
Is the argument that the teams that have allowed an inordinate amount of goals from 3 of the 4 divisions have not contributed to the inflated stats for offensive players in those 3 divisions?
For some reason, only players from 1 division have had the stigma attached to them of being in an offensive-minded division, despite the other 3 divisions having just as much imbalance between the haves and have nots.
Being a Leaf fan, I find it quite annoying that people keep downplaying Matthews' goal scoring season because "he's in the North".
The same stigma is being thrown at McDavid.
Maybe, if these players faced Philly and NJ and Buffalo and SJ and Arizona, etc.........
McDavid plays against Toronto - 100+ point team in recent years; Winnipeg - great team in recent years and some Vezina guy; Calgary - rather disappointing this season, but had been trending upwards for years; Vancouver - I seem to remember them playing quite late into last year's playoffs.
Stop downplaying what McDavid has done this year.
Would he have a lesser year had he been facing every team in the league? Sure.
But, the exact same thing can and should be said for all offensive leaders this year.
And when you really delve into the competition, McDavid's numbers haven't been inflated any more than those of Mackinnon, Barkov, Huberdeau, Rantanen, Draisaitl, Matthews, Marner, Kane, Aho, etc...