Mackinnon vs Matthews

[Spilot23]

And a ton of Avs fans explained to the stat watchers that pushed that narrative why it was fallacious and ignored all of the immense progress he had made

MacK had a fantastic 2016-2017 season, but folks who didn’t watch him tried to argue it was disappointing. So how much weight should we give those critiques?

And ah, my B, just find it odd how “high-producing” has been redefined for Matthews and assumed.

Couldn't agree more with the bolded. Never seen an Avs fan give up on Mack and say that we should trade him. Most of Avs fans knew what he was capable of, we knew his potential was sky high and this season isn't something that was near impossible from us it was just a matter of time. For me I expected Mack to be PPG someday but not 1,31 PPG So until Matthews can do what Mack did, give me Mack but IMO I wouldn't be surprised if Matthews is getting PPG starting next season 80-85pts if he is injury free though. Of course we also hope that Mack can repeat his season or at least stay PPG.

 

[loyaltotheend]

I like how MacKinnon was heavily criticised even up until the last off-season, but now everybody's all "oh he was always this good"

Ask MacKinnon to do the same again before comparing him to someone who's consistently producing at a high level

To me, this is the point. I'm not ready to call this season MacKs new baseline yet. I'm not saying he can't/won't, just that I'd like to see more of it before I take this as his norm.

Like you said, he was heavily criticized up until this breakout year.

 

[loyaltotheend]

And a ton of Avs fans explained to the stat watchers that pushed that narrative why it was fallacious and ignored all of the immense progress he had made

MacK had a fantastic 2016-2017 season, but folks who didn’t watch him tried to argue it was disappointing. So how much weight should we give those critiques?

And ah, my B, just find it odd how “high-producing” has been redefined for Matthews and assumed.

You're saying Nate had good underlying numbers that indicated he was better than his box score showed? He was poised to breakout? Makes total sense.

Not sure why you don't give that same credit to Matthews? (Maybe you do and I'm reading these posts wrong, if so my bad). He scored 40g as a rookie - 32 ES - and went just over ppg in an injury-riddled sophmore year. Nothing about that indicates to me he's in a lower tier. It's better than Nate did his first two seasons... They sound reasonably comparable in that regard.

Anyway, I doubt that Blues(?) fan is trying to redefine high-producing for Matthews...

 

[Filthy Dangles]

Season 1 +2

Mackinnon 146 gp 38g 101pts
Matthews 144 gp 74g 132pt

Gee, I wonder who I should pick...

I'm not even surprised at the results.
All the basement dwellers on Hfboards would vote for a potato before they'd vote for a Toronto player

lol what is this bro? Mac just put up 100 points and is an MVP Finalist. Ring back when AM34 does this....

Their rookie seasons are comparable. 63 points for Mac and 10P in 7 playoff games. He was the best player on the ice in that Avalanche Wild series as an 18 year old.

 

[member 157595]

This is difficult.

MacKinnon this year reached a level far exceeding anything Matthews has done to date, and if I'm Colorado I don't consider moving MacKinnon for Matthews. But I'm a TO fan and I prefer what Matthews did in years 1 and 2 to what MacKinnon did for his first two years and I don't know if I would want to risk moving Matthews for MacKinnon either.

I'm certainly confident in saying that MacKinnon is a far better player at the moment.

 

[Pyrophorus]

See, if MacKinnon has put up 70 points this year, I’d get that argument. But he wasn’t just a little better. He was a lot better than Matthews ever has been, and now MacKinnon needs to have multiple Hart level seasons before he can even be COMPARED to a guy who has none? You gotta see that’s ridiculous and heavily biased.

Whatever happened to small sample sizes?
Do you think William Karlsson will score 40 again?

 

[tucker3434]

Whatever happened to small sample sizes?
Do you think William Karlsson will score 40 again?

Couple things:

1. Matthews has played 144 total NHL games. So if Matthews isn’t small sample size and MacKinnon is, 1) where is the line? and 2) has it changed in the past 12 months?

2. I think William Karlsson is a whole lot better than people thought he was a year ago, and I think he’s closer to an 80 point player than a 25 point player which is kinda similar to how I feel about MacKinnon. Is anybody really betting either of these guys are sitting close to their 16/17 point totals at the end of 18/19? Sometimes players make big leaps in development in a short period of time. It should be much less surprising when it’s a player of MacKinnon’s ability.

 

[cgf]

You're saying Nate had good underlying numbers that indicated he was better than his box score showed? He was poised to breakout? Makes total sense.

Not sure why you don't give that same credit to Matthews? (Maybe you do and I'm reading these posts wrong, if so my bad). He scored 40g as a rookie - 32 ES - and went just over ppg in an injury-riddled sophmore year. Nothing about that indicates to me he's in a lower tier. It's better than Nate did his first two seasons... They sound reasonably comparable in that regard.

Anyway, I doubt that Blues(?) fan is trying to redefine high-producing for Matthews...

I do though. I regularly label Matthews a franchise talent and one of the great young Centers in this game. Moving forward, I group him with MacKinnon, Barkov & Eichel; in the tier of kids behind McJesus that I think all have the talent to pose the biggest challenge to Connor's crown in any given season throughout the next decade...but I'm not convinced that any of them will ever put up another season quite as ridiculous as the one Nate just had...and I include Nate in that.

Though I think MacK can & will get even better (as will the others); if Nate's never quite as dominant as he was from game 10 of this season until that last game against Nashville, I won't be completely shocked. The kid went off on a 1.4 pt per game tear over the remaining 70 regular season & playoff games of his year...a ridiculous # of them being primary pts, as his 77 primary pts were bested only by McDavid's 79, in 8 more games, and he was the only NHLer to top 3.00 primary pts/60 with his 3.14...and that with no support from our other lines at all to take any attention off of MacK's line; as evidenced by how our PP dropped from 22% on the season to ~7% when he was out & the dismal secondary scoring #s for the 2017-2018 Avs.

The only other Avs who have ever had seasons like that were Sakic & Forsberg, and it's not like either of those two legendary HOFers had all that many of them. So my comments reflect more just the incredible level that MacK hit after everything clicked at that 10 game mark. As, even though I rate all 4 of those young franchise centers' talent similarly, I can't pick Matthews or Eichel ahead of MacK until they have a season where they're arguably the best in the league, cause development isn't linear or guaranteed to continue ad infinitum. To though they're all amazing talents, they may well never be this great. i.e. Matthews could make a lot of progress over the next 3 years and still max out below MacKinnon 2017-2018, ya know?

Which doesn't mean that things won't change in the future (probably on an annual basis) when the others show that they are going to be elite NHLers & not just elite rookies/sophomores; or that MacK doesn't need to show that he wasn't just historically hot and have another season where he dominates up to his ability. But at this point? You'd have to think the difference in their raw ability was a lot bigger than I do to think that Matthews' ceiling is higher than what we've already seen from MacK by enough to justify picking him

 

[Le Magnifique 66]

MacKinnon for the Pens, great friends with Sid!

 

[WarriorOfGandhi]

let me know when MacKinnon wins anything in the best and most high-pressure hockey market in the world

 

[Erik Alfredsson]

let me know when MacKinnon wins anything in the best and most high-pressure hockey market in the world

Let me know when Matthews wins anything period.

 

[cgf]

Couple things:

1. Matthews has played 144 total NHL games. So if Matthews isn’t small sample size and MacKinnon is, 1) where is the line? and 2) has it changed in the past 12 months?

2. I think William Karlsson is a whole lot better than people thought he was a year ago, and I think he’s closer to an 80 point player than a 25 point player which is kinda similar to how I feel about MacKinnon. Is anybody really betting either of these guys are sitting close to their 16/17 point totals at the end of 18/19? Sometimes players make big leaps in development in a short period of time. It should be much less surprising when it’s a player of MacKinnon’s ability.

Karlsson isn't as young MacK was when they "broke out" and he didn't have the pedigree or flashes of greatness. Like MacK's rookie season...where his production was near identical to Matthews' (regular season + playoffs) despite MacK being 350 days younger...his international performances, his stretches of greatness before...like the ~PPG he was at before hurting his hand/wrist in 2015/2016, despite the rest of the team pulling an Iggy through October and November...or him leading his team in scoring by a wider margin than anyone in the NHL but McDavid in 2016/2017 (as percentage of the team's goals); while being response for the same proportion of his team's goals as the likes of Tarasenko & Seguin. MacK's talent has been rated this highly since he son'd Seth Jones at the Memorial Cup and followed that up by breaking a Gretzky record for consecutive points as an 18 year old & dominating that playoff series with the wild as a child.

Whereas Karlsson really just ran with his opportunity since getting it after not having the chance to really show us the flashes that where there from Nate. So MacK's "break out", if that's what it was, was much easier to predict than Wild Billy's. It'll be really interesting to see whether these two's 2018-2019 seasons are closer to their 2017-18 campaigns or the totals they hit in 2016-17. Should be one of the biggest storylines in the league heading into next season.

 

[Morbo]

Mackinnon.

Everyone is better than Auston Matthews.

 

[rent free]

Let me know when Matthews wins anything period.

matthews won the calder last season.

 

[BoHorvat 53]

The results of this poll will vary from year-to-year, but both will very likely be top-5 centres throughout their careers and will be apart of the constant debate of who is the best centre from their era.

Went with MacKinnon this year, would not be surprised if it's Matthews the next year.

 

[The Abusement Park]

I like how MacKinnon was heavily criticised even up until the last off-season, but now everybody's all "oh he was always this good"

Ask MacKinnon to do the same again before comparing him to someone who's consistently producing at a high level

To be fair his team point % last year was only a little bit higher this season than last season. I think he was was 36 or 37% this year and 32% last year, so obviously there was an increase but the team last year was dogshit. If the team scores 227 goals last year(league average) he would’ve put up around 70 pts. So while obviously this season is way better than last season he still had a good year last year despite how bad t was.

 

[tucker3434]

Karlsson isn't as young MacK was when they "broke out" and he didn't have the pedigree or flashes of greatness. Like MacK's rookie season...that was near identical to Matthews' (regular season + playoffs) despite MacK being 350 days younger...his international performances, his stretches of greatness before...like the ~PPG he was at before hurting his hand/wrist in 2015/2016, despite the rest of the team pulling an Iggy through October and November...or him leading his team in scoring by a wider margin than anyone in the NHL but McDavid in 2016/2017 (as percentage of the team's goals); while being response for the same proportion of his team's goals as the likes of Tarasenko & Seguin. MacK's talent has been rated this highly since he son'd Seth Jones at the Memorial Cup and followed that up by breaking a Gretzky record for consecutive points as an 18 year old & dominating that playoff series with the wild as a child.

Karlsson really just ran with his opportunity since getting it. So MacK's "break out", if that's what it was, was much easier to predict than Wild Billy's. It'll be really interesting to see whether these two's 2018-2019 seasons are closer to their 2017-18 campaigns or the totals they hit in 2016-17. Should be one of the biggest storylines in the league heading into next season.

I know. I just don’t think the small sample size argument works on Karlsson either, because I expect we’ll continue to see him play at a level much higher that he ever did before he went to Vegas.

 

[loyaltotheend]

I do though. I regularly label Matthews a franchise talent and one of the great young Centers in this game. Moving forward, I group him with MacKinnon, Barkov & Eichel; in the tier of kids behind McJesus that I think all have the talent to pose the biggest challenge to Connor's crown in any given season throughout the next decade...but I'm not convinced that any of them will ever put up another season quite as ridiculous as the one Nate just had...and I include Nate in that.

Though I think MacK can & will get even better (as will the others); if Nate's never quite as dominant as he was from game 10 of this season until that last game against Nashville, I won't be completely shocked. The kid went off on a 1.4 pt per game tear over the remaining 70 regular season & playoff games of his year...a ridiculous # of them being primary pts, as his 77 primary pts were bested only by McDavid's 79, in 8 more games, and he was the only NHLer to top 3.00 primary pts/60 with his 3.14...and that with no support from our other lines at all to take any attention off of MacK's line; as evidenced by how our PP dropped from 22% on the season to ~7% when he was out & the dismal secondary scoring #s for the 2017-2018 Avs.

The only other Avs who have ever had seasons like that were Sakic & Forsberg, and it's not like either of those two legendary HOFers had all that many of them. So my comments reflect more just the incredible level that MacK hit after everything clicked at that 10 game mark. As, even though I rate all 4 of those young franchise centers' talent similarly, I can't pick Matthews or Eichel ahead of MacK until they have a season where they're arguably the best in the league, cause development isn't linear or guaranteed to continue ad infinitum. To though they're all amazing talents, they may well never be this great. i.e. Matthews could make a lot of progress over the next 3 years and still max out below MacKinnon 2017-2018, ya know?

Which doesn't mean that things won't change in the future (probably on an annual basis) when the others show that they are going to be elite NHLers & not just elite rookies/sophomores; or that MacK doesn't need to show that he wasn't just historically hot and have another season where he dominates up to his ability. But at this point? You'd have to think the difference in their raw ability was a lot bigger than I do to think that Matthews' ceiling is higher than what we've already seen from MacK by enough to justify picking him

Yeah fair enough, I think we agree on most of these main points. Matty, Nate, and Eich are all in that category behind McDavid (who is just ridiculous).

Not disputing at all that MacK had a CRAZY good season. And that Matthews hasn't come close to it yet.

I guess my main points were/are: There's nothing from Matthews 1st two seasons that indicate he's not capable of reaching near 100 points on a season, and that I want to see MacKinnon do it again before I call this his new norm.

Who has had the best season? Obviously MacKinnon. This asks "going forward" and so I'll still take my boy Matthews. Nothing wrong with either choice imo

 

[Pyrophorus]

Let me know when Matthews wins anything period.

Calder?

 

[Erik Alfredsson]

matthews won the calder last season.

Calder?

Oh wow, the Calder, he joins the exclusive ranks of Tyler Myers, Andrew Raycroft, and the amazing Barret Jackman.

Definitely on the same level as the Hart. The Calder is probably the most meaningless trophy after the Byng.

 

[rent free]

Oh wow, the Calder, he joins the exclusive ranks of Tyler Myers, Andrew Raycroft, and the amazing Barret Jackman.

Definitely on the same level as the Hart. The Calder is probably the most meaningless trophy after the Byng.

That's still winning a trophy. Just because we disproved you doesn't mean you have to be rude about it.

 

[Regal]

To be fair his team point % last year was only a little bit higher this season than last season. I think he was was 36 or 37% this year and 32% last year, so obviously there was an increase but the team last year was dog****. If the team scores 227 goals last year(league average) he would’ve put up around 70 pts. So while obviously this season is way better than last season he still had a good year last year despite how bad t was.

Avs fans keep bringing this up, but it's just not how things work. Sure MacKinnon likely scores more on a better team, but he was still part of the team and his production was a part of the teams poor performance. He doesn't magically maintain the same percentage of points if the team scores way more goals, because the majority of those new goals would happen due to the other players being better and him being off the ice. Johnny Gaudreau got a point on a higher percentage of his team's goals this year than MacKinnon (38.5%). That doesn't mean he suddenly gets 100 points on the Avs.

 

[The Abusement Park]

Avs fans keep bringing this up, but it's just not how things work. Sure MacKinnon likely scores more on a better team, but he was still part of the team and his production was a part of the teams poor performance. He doesn't magically maintain the same percentage of points if the team scores way more goals, because the majority of those new goals would happen due to the other players being better and him being off the ice. Johnny Gaudreau got a point on a higher percentage of his team's goals this year than MacKinnon (38.5%). That doesn't mean he suddenly gets 100 points on the Avs.

Of course it's not a linear increase in points. But if the team was actually better last year they would've scored more goals which in turn means more points for Mackinnon.

 

[Highmarker]

every poll on HF is so stupid. Last year Mackinnon would have been blown out by Leon Draisaitl in the same poll.

 

[Morbo]

Oh wow, the Calder, he joins the exclusive ranks of Tyler Myers, Andrew Raycroft, and the amazing Barret Jackman.

Definitely on the same level as the Hart. The Calder is probably the most meaningless trophy after the Byng.

you were wrong, no need to be sour about it. take the loss and move on.