Historical relevance of Kucherov and MacKinnon's 2024 season?

[daver]

The more I look at things, the less I believe that neither of the seasons being discussed are good parallels. But I also don't believe that the comparison between two different seasons worked. Expected or not, there were, simply put, more outliers this season than last season. I don't see what whether they were expected or not has anything to do with it. With the suggestion that Panarin may be an outlier, that's complicated ever further.

What do you mean by "outlier"? That Panarin also had an unusual spike year? Or that his 1.46 PPG is also a statistical outlier?

If it's the former, Panarin had hit 1.38 twice and was 3rd in PPG from 19/20 to 20/21.

If it's the latter, what is the threshold for determining an "outlier".

That Panarin is being considered an "outlier" at all indicates a flaw in the VsX calculation.

 

[daver]

That invokes the question: If a player like Bernie Nicholls can have such a strong outlier season, why can't a player of Kucherov's calibre? It looks like that is exactly what happened.

However, if scoring is similar at the very top next season, we will either have to upgrade Kucherov and/or MacKinnon... or if different players have such strong outliers, find an explanation as to why that sort of thing is happening more frequently and perhaps account for that in comparison methods.

Hard to say that Kucherov and Nicholls were in the same situation given Wayne's presence. The similarity is that two outlier seasons happened in the same season like this year; one of which was done by a player whose resume/offensive ceiling was similar to Kucherov and MacKinnon.

 

[Staniowski]

Kucherov and MacKinnon are two of the very best scorers in the history of the sport. I think it's just going to take a while for everybody to accept it.

Kucherov is a very special player, some of his talents are unique and among the very best ever. He's also had some significant injuries which have slowed him down. His scoring would otherwise have been even better.

MacKinnon is on track to put up some big career numbers, and will likely reach some career points milestones at a younger age than either Crosby or Ovechkin. MacKinnon is a better scorer (goals + assists) than Ovechkin, obviously.