Again, I'm not saying the benching was the right decision (I think it was silly), but Larkin along with Eichel had the lowest possession % (~20%) among NA forwards through two periods. (The Drouin benching was more of a mystery to me, totally unfathomable.)
My only point is that there are stats suggesting that McDavid's line was the best one, so I think it's unfair to answer the question "Are there legitimate reasons to play McDavid more than others or is this just asshole coaching?" with the assumption that the only reason McLellan gave more time to McDavid was because of favoritism of a player on his NHL team, and to say that "numbers" don't back it up.
Re: Game day thread 19 Sept 2016
Again, I'm not saying the benching was the right decision (I think it was silly), but Larkin along with Eichel had the lowest possession % (~20%) among NA forwards through two periods. (The Drouin benching was more of a mystery to me, totally unfathomable.)
My only point is that there are stats suggesting that McDavid's line was the best one, so I think it's unfair to answer the question "Are there legitimate reasons to play McDavid more than others or is this just asshole coaching?" with the assumption that the only reason McLellan gave more time to McDavid was because of favoritism of a player on his NHL team, and to say that "numbers" don't back it up.