When will MacKinnon surpass Duchene?

[PAZ]

Offensively, by the end of this season/playoffs.

Overall game? 1-3 years. Mackinnon has a lot of areas to work on before we even consider him being close to Duchene overall.

 

[Lonewolfe2015]

Opening Night can't come soon enough... I just don't see MacKinnon being better than this guy yet. My vote isn't being counted as I can't vote for a tie.

 

[Tweaky]

I do.

 

[5280]

I do.

Here ya go Tweaky.

 

[avsfan09]

The thing MacKinnon seems to have on Duchene is simplicity and confidence. He makes very makes quicker decisions and uses his speed better. Duchene is prone to large confidence lapses and trying to do too much. For this reason I think Mac will rack up more points. When they are both at their best I think Duchene creates more, but Mac finishes at a much higher rate.

The crazy thing is Duchene still has a lot of room to grow. If he can learn to be a little more composed and make better shots offensively and level out his highs and lows as a player he can be a top 5 center in the NHL.

 

[cgf]

When in the last two seasons has Duchene's confidence been an issue? Even during ~20 game stretch last year where he stopped scoring goals he still racked up the points and kept creating. Duchene's confidence hasn't been an issue since the work he started doing after that disastrous third year.

 

[StayAtHomeAv]

I feel like he looses confidence in his shot very quickly, but that's about it. Once he started missing the top corners last year I felt like he started looking 5 hole a lot and was just throwing shots on net instead of picking the corners.

 

[Puckstop40]

Never

 

[Foppa2118]

This might sound crazy but I think Mack might have a better chance at becoming better defensively than Duchene quicker than offensively.

He's still got issues, but I saw some things in the last game in Vegas against the Kings that showed me he approaches playing D better than Duchene does. He uses his body position better, and is more physical in trying to contain players. Duchene mainly just tries to shadow players and use his stick, but doesn't really "battle" that much defensively. I saw some battle in Nate defensively the last game. Definitely saw a change from last year where he looked a little lost.

It's still a learning process for him, and he's got to get used to thinking defensively when he's in the D zone, instead of just waiting to get the puck, but I saw a lot more patience in him. Wasn't cheating, and was willing to stay in position even if it meant he was the last forward to leave the zone in transition.

We all saw how quickly he learned the NHL game offensively last year, and I think he might have an equally quick learning curve defensively this year.