I spoke with a current NHL assistant coach a few months ago about the value of players who draw more penalties than they take. He told me that he’s been in organizations where they would factor this into player acquisition conversations. If they were looking at a couple of guys who were both 20-goal scorers but one had a penalty differential of +10 and the other had a differential of -10, that’s a swing of 20 odd-man situations. If your team has a powerplay success rate of 20% and a penalty kill of 80%, the player with the +10 differential is all of a sudden worth 22 goals while the player with a -10 differential has a value of 18.

By that logic, when you factor in Barkov’s +18 penalty differential on a Panthers team that currently has a powerplay clicking at 25.6%, that’s an extra 4.7 goals Barkov has added in value to his team, on top of the 8 he’s scored in 22 games.

Bottom line, Barkov continues to be one of the most dominant 200-foot players in the game and if he continues to impact the game defensively at the rate he is, he should not only be a Selke finalist this season, he should win it. The Lady Byng, too if he stays out of the box the way he has.

So, get the hashtag going Panthers’ fans. #SelkeBarkov

(Photo by Richard A. Whittaker/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)