New career projections have MacKinnon and Makar climbing NHL record books

There’s a 34% chance Nathan MacKinnon ends his career with the second-most points in NHL history, according to new projections from the Daily Faceoff.

At the very least the forecast calls for MacKinnon to join Joe Sakic as one of the 14 players in NHL history to dish out 1,000 assists and for Cale Makar to become the ninth defenseman to cross the 1,000-point threshold.

The website used a formula called “Favorite Toy” created by baseball stats guru Bill James in hopes of getting a decent idea of what stats these NHL stars would get. Using age, performance and a heavy influence of what the players have done the last few years, the projections aimed to get an idea of what was possible and probable. It’s not as easy as saying a good player will do well for a long as they bring up two Colorado Avalanche players as cautionary tales of Jonathan Drouin falling short of his early career prospects and major injuries limiting Gabriel Landeskog.

MacKinnon became the 100th player in NHL history to cross the 1,000-point benchmark earlier this month. Having played 860 games, Daily Faceoff believes the reigning Hart Trophy winner is just over the halfway point of what they expect to be a 1,406-game career. In it, they have him scoring 607 goals and dishing out 1,171 assists for a total of 1,778 points. That would end MacKinnon’s career just a few points off of Ron Francis’s current fifth-all-time mark of 1,798 points. Though the same projections call for both Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid to rise above Gordie Howe’s 1,850 NHL points, which is fourth-best—and that doesn’t even count his 508 points in the 1970s while playing in the WHA.

While Alexander Ovechkin is on the verge of beating Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goals record, nobody is ever catching his 2,857 points—nearly 1,000 more than second-place Jaromir Jagr. But the new projections believe one of Crosby, McDavid or MacKinnon to pass Jagr. Sid is closest at 1,670 points but way older—giving him just a 34% chance. McDavid’s chances of ranking right behind No. 99 are best at 43%, but his chances fell 7% from last year after some major drop in recent production. MacKinnon’s chances rose even more than McDavid’s fell at 9%, up to 34%. This equals a probability of 111% between the trio, meaning it’s likely one of these current greats will be next to the Great One. There are also five other players including Mikko Rantanen, who have a slight chance at Jagr’s mark.

Meanwhile, on the blue line, there hasn’t been a player to get 1,000 points since Nick Lidstrom in 2009, and that’s going to change. Three-time Norris winner Erik Karlsson is already at 866 points, giving him a 94% shot at the mark. Despite having half the points of the Swede, Cale Makar has a 61% chance of reaching the 1,000-point mark.

The projections here hint at how great the Avs have it, and if there is health is good—MacKinnon and Makar’s career marks will be high in the NHL record books.