Barkov is the only forward who I've watched cover MacKinnon and thought, holy shit that's a good hockey player.
Crosby as an option doesn't even kill penalties
Lindholm is definitely moving himself into the conversation as a dark horse candidate. 20 goals and 30 assists in 44 games with a +/- of +27.
He leads the league, among fwds in +/- and is currently in 15th place in scoring. Colton Sissons is 2nd with +21 and Gaudreau is 3rd in +/- among fwds with +20.
Lindholm is a center.... just like Draisaitl.It's pretty much impossible for a winger to win anymore though, and he doesn't have the reputation vote going for him.
Just to add some info on stone...
+/- Can be used properly in the right context. I'm going to do it here.
Last year:
Mark Stone +9
Zack Smith -32
Cody Ceci -27
Erik Karlsson -25
Matt Duchene -23
Mike Hoffman -20
Ryan Dzingel -17
JG Pageau -14
Bobby Ryan -12
Thomas Chabot -12
Tom Pyatt -12
This year:
Mark Stone +11
Cody Ceci -20
Magnus Paajarvi -19
Max Lajoie -17
Tom Pyatt -16
Mikkel Boedker -14
Ryan Dxingel -13
Chris Tierny -13
Bobby ryan -11
Colin White -9
Chris Wieman -9
Max McCormick -6
Matt Duchene -5
Mark Borowiecki -5
Nick Paul -5
He's constantly the only player who is a plus on the sens when everyone else is record breaking minuses lol.
Takeaways:
2014-2015:
1) Mark Stone 98 (rookie year)
2) Ryan O'Reilly 98
3) John Tavares 94
2015-2016
1) Mark Stone 128
2) Jeff Skinner 77
3) Dustin Byfuglien 73
2016-2017
1) Mark Stone 96
2) Jaccob Slavin 83
3) Mcdavid, Matthews, Forsberg 76
2017-2018
*Stone misses big chunk of season and plays 58 games*
This year:
1) Mark Stone 70
2) Aleksander Barkov 58
3) Connor mcdavid 56
I think stone is due.
I know nobody likes +/- but the voters simply do not give the Selke to players in the minus There's a lot of season left to go but if Barkov wants it this year he's got to at least get back near even.
Also, I love the hypocrisy of everyone who complains that the Selke is a reputation award and then votes for Barkov. If he didn't win it last year he certainly doesn't deserve it this year.
This year:
Elias Lindholm - currently 20 goals + 30 assists = 50 pts and a plus/minus of +27
Forgetting about what players did last year or previous years, because after all this award is about how they perform this year, Lindholm is the leading candidate AINEC compared to Stone or Barkov.
All sorts of factors go into creating either a good or bad +/-. Just because one player plays on a very bad team and their +/- is respectable doesn't mean they are better defensively than a player that plays on a very good team and has a league leading (among forwards) +/-.Plus minus is only useful when comparing to the rest of your team like I did.
You think just pointing to the higher plus minus is an argument but it isn't.
All sorts of factors go into creating either a good or bad +/-. Just because one player plays on a very bad team and their +/- is respectable doesn't mean they are better defensively than a player that plays on a very good team and has a league leading (among forwards) +/-.
But you know what is a good indicator of good defensive play? The amount of time a player plays killing penalties.
A coach always plays his best defensive forwards on the PK. If you play a 200 ft game and are good defensively you'll see time on the PK. If you're great at both those things you'll see a lot of time on the PK.
Elias Lindholm has played 97.4 minutes of PK time. Mark Stone has played 59.8 minutes.
You would think that with Mark Stone playing on such a defensively disastrous team like Ottawa and if he's so good defensively, that he would have a lot more PK time than Lindholm... or at least equal to. Instead he has almost half the PK time that Lindholm has.
Lindholm > Stone. Don't discount his abilities just because he plays on a very good team and Stone plays on a dumpster fire team. If thats the perameters you want to use lets just award the Hart Memorial Trophy to Conor McDavid of the Oilers, the Vezina to Jack Campbell of the Kings, and of course the Selke to Stone, right now.
Now there's the rub. Lindholm plays on both the #1 PP unit and the PK unit. So you can do both and Lindholm does both very well.What you said is not true at all.
Many teams best defensive forwards don't get the most amount of PK time. Especially when that player is great offensively. Look at datsyuks PK numbers for example.
This has been explained countless times in countless topics I'm surprised you've never seen it.
A 3rd and 4th liner can come close to contributing as much as stone on the PK but not anywhere close when it comes to offensive numbers. And since you can't play stone all game, your have to manage the minutes. If you gave stone more PK minutes then he wouldn't be as fresh to produce offensively. It's time management and you completely ignored it throughout your whole post which is kinda surprising considering how much of a factor it is.
Now there's the rub. Lindholm plays on both the #1 PP unit and the PK unit. So you can do both and Lindholm does both very well.
Apparently Stone can only do one.
Lindholm has 154 minutes on the PP, 97 minutes on the PK, and 613 minutes 5 on 55 on 5 doesn't exist anymore??
Lindholm has 154 minutes on the PP, 97 minutes on the PK, and 613 minutes 5 on 5
Stone has 121 minutes on the PP, 59 minutes on the PK, and 655 minutes 5 on 5
Stone has played 42 more minutes that Lindholm 5 on 5 but Lindholm has played 38 more minutes on the PK and 33 more minutes on the PP. Lindholm has 27 more minutes of TOI ice time than Stone (44 games vs 43 games)
I just don't think its as cut and dried as you say when you compare Stone to Lindholm.