> Rantanen top 10 RW

> Not stupid

pick one

i think id put Point over Stamkos.

Fair

i feel like wheeler, tank, and stone over pastrnak, marner, and laine is really weird.

If it was only this season it'd be going too far, but considering what he did last season as well. MacKinnon is good, but 18/19 of his goals are assisted by Rantanen. That's a two-way exchange

Wheeler is 7th in point since start of last season, Stone is the best defensive winger by a country mile

How exactly is Rantanen not a top 10 winger?

He doesn’t drive play at all. His xGF relative to his QoT is barely at a 1st line level. He is massively inflated by playing with MacK. His xGA is awful too which doesn’t help. He’s definitely not a bad player but not top 10, more like top 35.

He doesn’t drive play at all. His xGF relative to his QoT is barely at a 1st line level. He is massively inflated by playing with MacK. His xGA is awful too which doesn’t help. He’s definitely not a bad player but not top 10, more like top 35.

So my issue with this is look at Landeskog. He's been a solid 1st line or high end second line winger so far in his career. Rantanen looks better than him. A lot better.

Rantanen is 5th in points since the start of last season. Fifth. He's an elite passer and a very good shot. In 3 more games that's 43 more points than Tarasenko who you have no problem with occupying the spot after him? Like I do consider the boost of playing with exceptional players, but it's hard to tax someone much more than that. MacKinnon has been a really good player for a couple of years, but no one has produced nearly at this rate with him.

Now, there are arguments for knocking him down a couple of spots - I think in reality someone like Wheeler plays a similair style and probably drives the Wpg bus a bit more, but as stated in the description this is for starting a season tomorrow, and I think Wheeler is slowing down, I don't think Rantanen is. I think the top right wingers have gotten a significant boost in the last year or so with Pastrnak coming into his own, Marner looking better etc the top 10 feels really close to me - except for Kucherov. I did however knock Stamkos a fair bit for riding shotgun with Kuch, so maybe I'm going a bit against my methodology with rating so highly Rantanen.

I'd be intrigued to see you list 34 right wingers better than him though

My biggest knock on Rantanen is that just doesn’t doesn’t drive play. He has a good shot and soft hands but he’s just lacking the x factor that really pushes him over the edge. I have him at 26 on my RW list so top 35 was a slight exaggeration lol. He’s a good player but he really benefits from playing with Mack. Wheeler can drive play on his own and is ok defensively. Landeskog is a physical winger who can play solid defense too. If Rantanen could add defense or play driving ability to his game I would have no problem considering him a top 10 RW.

I think part of that issue could be that MacKinnon does it so well, like he's always going to get the entry cause of his speed, and he does play in the middle of the ice and should be more involved in that sense. If they played a more similair game I'd have more of a problem with that I think, but in this scenario I think it's hard to knock him for not doing other things when the things he's doing are working out so well. He can just stand in the OZ and set up scoring chances cause it's worked out 129 times since the start of last season. I get where you're coming from - they could very well just hit a slump, separate the two and we never hear ppg from Rantanen ever again, but it's been going too well for too long for my liking not to go with that correlation.

How do you rate someone like Laine, comparatively? Cause I feel like he's a lot of the same, except shoot rather than pass first obv

Yeah your point about MacK is spot on. He drives that line and Rantanen and Landy are good complements to him. I think I would take Rants over Laine because Laine is pretty lacking in a lot of parts in his game.