Quote:
Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina
True, but McDavid is an exception in most ways.
The key is when does he start to see any decline in his speed, because that's his super power - the ability to make plays at speed unlike any other player in the history of the game.
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If you look at his PPG stats it looks like he's already on the way down:
Age at the end of the season in brackets.
2016: 1.07 (19)
2017: 1.22 (20)
2018: 1.32 (21)
2019: 1.49 (22)
2020: 1.52 (23)
2021: 1.88 (24)
2022: 1.54 (25)
2023: 1.87 (26)
2024: 1.74 (27)
2025: 1.49 (28)
Plot that up, and it looks like a pretty typical arc for a forward who has peaked and starts to decline.
Don't get me wrong 1.5 pts/game is still pretty freaking good. Maybe he hangs in there, maybe he bounces back, if either of those happen, it looks pretty good.
But he looks to be following a pretty typical aging curve. Considering that's pretty standard for most forwards, and the ammount of miles the guy has put on, I would say it's more likely he continues to decline than not.
Just for kicks I overlayed McDavid's PPG and Gretzky's. If you scale up McDavids to match the PPG, it looks eerily similar to Wayne's, where he peaked for for 3 of 4 years around 24, and then steadily declined.
Still pretty good, but