Nathan MacKinnon: 100 points in his last 76 (regular season) games.
- Thread starter Theo Von
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Insightful.
I suspect many Sabres fans look at the stunning breakout season McKinnon had last year, and wistfully imagine Sleepy Jack duplicating it.
AvsFan29
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Well, 70-80 points is still pretty strong in today's NHL. The other way to look at your remark is that you believe that he essentially was close to his peak when he put up 64 points as a rookie that had just turned 18 years old.
Some of his point production will be dependent on the talent around him, which appears to be growing in Colorado.
ricky0034
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woah he's got 3 points in only 2 games?
nevermind then,if he can put up as many points in 2 games as Colton Sissons and Zack Smith he's probably gonna break Gretzky's single season points record
Mickey Marner
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He's at his peak and will probably continue to be a ~100 point player for 1-2 more seasons. Then drop off to a 70-80 point guy.
Mr Zappalanche
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Mack is a little bit rusty at the moment but he is still producing well, but if there is someone to talk about on the Avs right now that is 20 year old Sam Girard. Little guy plays on the top pairing and looks ridicoulously good.
GirardSpinorama
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He has 15 SOGs in his first two games this season. Obviously, that is an unsustainable pace long term. Nevertheless, if he is producing a very high SOG rate, he will put up some significant numbers this season. He has zero points on the PP through two games (along with Rantanen, Landeskog, Barrie, and Jost, all of whom are pointless through two games on the PP).
ricky0034
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how about you name someone that suddenly after 300+ games played in the NHL almost doubles their previous years point total without a significant increase in icetime and then actually maintains it?
fluky one off years happen all the time,Jiri Hudler and Nick Foligno are two names that pop immediately to mind with seasons where they had a similar level of overperformance relative to their careers
AvsFan29
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My point was that he's putting up points, and he hasn't even played up to his level. Sissons and Smith don't have another level.woah he's got 3 points in only 2 games?
nevermind then,if he can put up as many points in 2 games as Colton Sissons and Zack Smith he's probably gonna break Gretzky's single season points record
It isn’t on us to prove that our guy that got 97 points at 22 is really good. You’re the one with a minority viewpoint here. You prove it to us.
If you think MacKinnon is remotely comparable to guys like Foligno or Hudler you’re in for a rude awakening.
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he had a 60 point rookie season back when the top scorers were barely breaking 80 points and then two 50 point years with not very good linemates on a bad team. he also had a better rookie playoff appearance then I think phil kessel ever had. if your problem is he needs linemates to have these seasons then fair enough i guess? speaking of kessel you may not remember this but, not particularly good his first few seasons.
Yeah let’s leave out those 64 were in 67 and he had 57 in 61 the year before yet mackinnon gets excuses like he was in a Tire fire team yet that didn’t stop eichel from producing just under a ppg twice which makinnons only done once.
I’m not saying eichel is better But so what if Mack out scored him last year eichel our scored him the year before on one good leg playing two less months in just his second season.
I’m not saying he’s better but at least produce context if your gonna rip someone. He’s played a few more seasons I should hope he has a much higher career high. He also plays with rantanen and landedkog way better line mates then eichel ever had.
Ps eichel has 123 pts in his last 130 games Mack has was what 140-150? If that. Not vastly different.
Are we still talking about MacKinnon? We've moved on to Girard already.
Let me know when Eichel puts up 100 in 76.
Ps try putting periods at the end of all your sentences. That would be a good start.
Thornton took a while to get going, had his real breakout year as the same age as MacKinnon and was then able to maintain it. Of course MacKinnon won’t continue to be the guy he was last year, he played at a 108 point pace, that’s Malkin/McDavid level, he’s not that guy. The Avs had the most power plays in the league and Mackinnons shooting percentage and on ice shooting percentages weren’t crazy high but they will probably come down this year. He’s not going to go back to 50 points either though.
I think the reason he took a while to really get going is that MacKinnon plays a power forward game. Most people mistakenly consider his game based around speed but his skating is more about power and explosiveness rather than pure speed. In junior he could outmuscle everybody and play his game, in the NHL it’s hard to do that at 18-20 until you gain your man strength. Power forwards are like dmen where they take a bit longer to really hit their potential. MacKinnon isn’t generally thought of as a power forward but I think people would be surprised to know that if he won the Hart (like he should have IMO), he would’ve had the most fights from a Hart trophy winner since Clarke in the 70’s. He’s a lot tougher than most casual fans would assume.
I think the true value of MacKinnon isn’t going to come in the regular season anyways, at such a young age he’s already made a name for himself as a guy that could be this generations Briere come playoff time. He torched the Q playoffs, had the most dominant memorial cup in recent history, had 10 points in 7 games as an 18 year old rookie in the playoffs, was the young guns best player in the World Cup, and just had another strong playoff series against the president trophy winning Predators who are known for their stingy defence. He’s definitely a guy that brings it when the games matter.
Uncle Scrooge
Hockey Bettor
I think that's a bit unfair, first year he put up 63 pts and 10 in the first round of the playoffs. That was the year the Avs had a pretty good team with Duchene, ROR and Stastny still on the team. MacKinnon came as advertised and had a good season for 18 yr old.
Then the organization started to make all the wrong decisions and the team got worse, and he had some injury issues in 14-15. Not a great year but it's only his 2nd season, no biggie.
Through 15-17 MacKinnon was one of the few players on the team who put up respectable totals. 15-16 the team had 4x 50 point scorers. in 16-17 only one. Both seasons they had zero 60 point scorers. Basically the supporting cast wasn't there and the team lost a lot of games. Not much fun to play.
Personally i think the situation Colorado was in kind of masked how good MacKinnon is. Every time i managed to catch Avs games i thought there was at the very least glimpses of what he can do, and you could see he's a really good player. In 16-17 i remember when they played the Blues who were making a big playoff push, Avs were on the verge of getting swept in the season series. MacKinnon just decided he didn't want to lose to them anymore and he dominated them every shift he got out there.
Every poll i saw MacKinnon in people pointed out how he's a 50 point center. It was hard to argue that, but i always thought to myself when watching him play, he doesn't feel like a 50 point player.
Now he's full of confidence, knows he can dominate and most importantly knows it's worth it because the team can win games. Seeing him have fun out there and as a result playing at this level didn't surprise me, tbh i was more surprised about how Hall was able to dominate to the extent he did last season.
TL;DR sometimes players are better than they realize, you just need to be in a good place mentally to bring that out of you. MacKinnon has always been the type of player who wants to do stuff himself and challenge the opposing defenders. Confidence is everything when translating that to point production.
You point out Eichel and i would say even though he's managed to put up the points, i think he's a better player than what we've seen so far. Sometimes he doesn't look that great to me, and sometimes when he's having the type of game i expect to see from him, the team still loses and he gets frustrated. Hopefully the Sabres turn it around this year and i think we'll see Eichel hit 90 pts as well.
Mack has broken out last year mainly because he figured out a lot of things about playing efficiently with his skill-set, namely:
- Using his skating to control the pace of the game rather than constantly going full-out;
- Using his linemates efficiently, especially on zone entries;
- Not letting himself be frustrated as easily;
Of course, Rantanen helps a lot too - but not to the same degree.
I can certainly agree that exploding in your fifth season after minimal progress in the first four is an unusual career path (especially for a 1st overall pick), but those who chalk up his >40 point improvement to luck and linemates have very obviously not seen the contrast in his play between 2016-2017 and 2017-2018.
- Using his skating to control the pace of the game rather than constantly going full-out;
- Using his linemates efficiently, especially on zone entries;
- Not letting himself be frustrated as easily;
Of course, Rantanen helps a lot too - but not to the same degree.
I can certainly agree that exploding in your fifth season after minimal progress in the first four is an unusual career path (especially for a 1st overall pick), but those who chalk up his >40 point improvement to luck and linemates have very obviously not seen the contrast in his play between 2016-2017 and 2017-2018.
Lemonlimey
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Avs fam, let us learn not to get trolled so easily! Haters gonna.
AvsFan29
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Is Jack Eichel on my Tim Hortons coffee cup? No. Nathan MacKinnon is.
Kamiccolo
Truly wonderful, the mind of a child is.
It's been two games. Yes he had a good year last year, no one debated that. Avs fans themselves said that he looks off, points come easily the first month of the season. Come back to me in March if he is still putting up insane numbers and I will admit he is legit.
His last 76 games aren’t “now”. They’re the past just like his first four seasons are the past and all of it is relevant to predicting what he’ll do in the future. Obviously recent history is more important than less recent history but it’s still all relevant.
rmthomson21
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If that's the case, there's only one player in the league I want more if the goal is to win a single game tomorrow.
