This past season was dominated by two teams. While the Edmonton Oilers continued their playoff excellence, the Florida Panthers have been effortless in their back-to-back Stanley Cup-winning runs. But the Panthers were the better team when it came to the Finals.
With South Florida being led by Sam Bennett, they made quick work of the Oilers with a dominant victory in Game 6. But when it comes to individual brilliance, the Oilers forward has been way better than Bennett. And a recent stat shows just how wide their gap is.
Recent Stats Show That Connor McDavid Is Way Ahead of Sam Bennett
While the Oilers failed to get past the Panthers on June 17, it didn’t stop Connor McDavid from getting 100 points across the regular season and another 33 points during the playoffs. Meanwhile, Bennett managed 51 points in the regular season.
And even though the Panthers won the Stanley Cup, Bennett managed just 22 points in the playoffs. But while he might’ve won, a recent stat shared by “DataDrivenHockey” shows just how wide the gap between the two forwards has been.
The post shared, “The Florida Panthers won back-to-back championships without a single point-per-game player across the two playoff runs.” Matthew Tkachuk remained the highest point scorer for the Panthers with 45 points across 47 games at a PPG of 0.96.
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He was followed by Carter Verhaeghe and Aleksander Barkov, who both had 44 points in the same number of games. In comparison, the Oilers had three players with a PPG of more than 1. McDavid led the pack with 75 points across 47 games with a PPG of 1.60.
He was followed by teammates Leon Draisaitl (64 pts) and Evan Bouchard (55 pts), who had a PPG of 1.36 and 1.17, respectively. In comparison, Bennett managed just 36 points across 42 games with a PPG of 0.86.
But the post also mentions, “They had 6 players with at least 1 penalty minute per game played, though. The only non-Panthers in the top 8 PIM are Evander Kane and Logan Stanley.” This, however, points to another difference between the Oilers and the Panthers.
The Oilers were largely carried to the playoffs by the performances of McDavid and Draisaitl, who both had a 100-point season. But other than these two, only Evan Bouchard scratched past 50 points with 67 points in 82 games.
Meanwhile, while the Panthers’ forwards failed to have a single player with a hundred points, they had five players with more than 50 points, with Sam Reinhart leading with 81 points. The depth in the forwards was even more visible in the playoffs, where six players scored 20 or more points.
On the other hand, for the Oilers, only Draisaitl and McDavid were explosive in the playoffs, which eventually became a reason for them to outgun the Oilers in their face-off. As the new season approaches, the Oilers will be looking to add more crunch players to their squad.
