Leave it to the NBA talking heads to bicker about end-of-year awards. The NHL might have the most boring MVP race of this century.
When a consensus generational player already armed with two Hart Trophies blows his own past seasons out of the water, the ballots might as well be set to default.
Connor McDavid’s numbers have ascended into Gretzkian territory: 152 points, including 64 goals. The Oilers’ center cannot be denied. But which Colorado Avalanche star will appear on more ballots: Nathan MacKinnon or Mikko Rantanen?
That’s a brain teaser with an answer nowhere near as clear as the one between Edmonton teammates McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. Even Avalanche coach Jared Bednar was stumped when asked how he distinguishes between the two.
“I’ve been asked this question a couple times already, and I can’t,” he said. “Because I’d have to go back down to give you the proper answer, and go, ‘OK, this game, he meant this.’ Kind of go through it. They’re both so valuable to our team, and they contribute in different ways. I’m impressed with both of their seasons. And really the main reason, which I think makes this season even better than their years past, is they didn’t play together. So all their numbers and their career highs they’ve hit over the course of the season — for most of those seasons, they played together.
“This year, (right) now they are. But for the bulk of the season, they didn’t. And they still put up career highs. So that just kind of shows you what they’re made of.”
It’s true. For most of the season, Bednar put MacKinnon and Rantanen on separate lines to maximize their impact. Both excelled, and they didn’t rely on each other for excessive power play stats, either. The rationales spar with each other.
Rantanen: league-leading 42 even-strength goals.
MacKinnon: only player in the league to average a point per game at even strength.
Rantanen: 55 total goals to MacKinnon’s 39.
MacKinnon: 107 total points to Rantanen’s 102 — in 11 fewer games.
Rantanen: 11 more games played than MacKinnon in a season defined by injuries. Nine goals and 13 points in the 11 games MacKinnon missed, carrying the Avs to a 6-3-2 stretch.
MacKinnon: best player of the second-half turnaround. After the team’s 20-17-3 start, it went 30-7-4. MacKinnon registered 66 points (28 goals) in those 41 games. Eight game-winning goals in the second half. The Avs don’t climb back in the division without him.
Rantanen: Are the Avs even lingering above .500 at the halfway point without him? He had 51 points (27 goals) in those first 40 games, including 20% of the team’s game-winners, two hat tricks and a 17.2% shooting percentage.
MacKinnon: 50 fewer penalty minutes.
Rantanen: one more imaginary Stanley Cup ring flaunted from the penalty box.
MacKinnon: better percentages of expected goals for and scoring chances for. Top-10 in The Athletic’s Goal Score Value Added (GSVA) model, an all-encompassing metric sort of like baseball’s WAR. Rantanen is “only” top 25.
Together: a top-five power play in the league. A 50-win season without Gabriel Landeskog, without Cale Makar for 20 games, without a thousand other guys for a million other games.
There’s no end to it.
“Their teammates around them were equally good or better than they’ve ever been,” Bednar said. “(J.T.) Compher being one guy that benefits playing with Mikko. It would be really hard for me to pick one, to be honest with you.”
