You mean the year he was 22? He didn’t have a Marner or Matthews caliber player ahead of him to shield him from the toughest competition. To say they are not even in the same universe for talent also seems harsh given their respective production.
I think you might have had a better point here if Forsberg was say 19–20 years old and a sophomore player or something, rather than a 22-year old with back-to-back 30 goal seasons and over 250 RS games under his belt at that point. 23-year old teammate Viktor Arvidsson (with way less NHL games under his belt) was out there flying and hustling his ass off and was very visible. I'm not buying 1 year between the two would have made all the difference in the world, but chalk it down more to playing style.
By the way, I'm not claiming the 2017 SCFs is some greatly overbearing black mark on Forsberg's career in terms of his lack of production, because anyone can have a bad playoff series or get shut down by a strong team, but it was more of
how it went down. He scored fine in those playoffs as long as Nashville had Johansen driving play, but when Johansen got injured Forsberg didn't step in and drive play in his place.
This Matthews/Marner argument is a bit of a chicken or egg argument, because it can be applied both ways in terms of opportunity. Nylander was even taken off PP1 in these playoffs because they're so loaded on his position (Marner), no ways in hell he gets taken off PP1 if he plays in Nashville.
Also, regarding Matthews/Marner playing tougher match-ups, when Nylander tied up Game 5 against the Panthers in the dying 5 minutes of the game, and gave the Leafs a chance to win in OT, he just blew by Brandon Montour. You don't think Matthews or Marner had ample opportunities in that series to blow by Montour, who logged the most minutes of all Florida Ds? You're making it sound here like Willy played the entire series worth of TOI against Mahura and Gudas.
Nikita Kucherov's played in two World Championship tournaments, in 2017 and 2019, scoring 31 points in 20 games. These two tournaments are also the only Worlds Willy's ever played in, his production: 32 points in 18 games.
When I say Willy and Forsberg are in different universes offensively I mean their overall offensive skillsets. Forsberg's up there when it comes to sniping, but hockey's more than just sniping.