NHL Releases Selke Trophy Finalists and We Have Questions

The NHL's top defensive forward debate is always interesting. The Frank J. Selke Trophy goes 'to the forward who best excels in the defensive aspects of the game.' For a long time this award practically belonged to Pavel Datsyuk & more recently Patrice Bergeron. Today the NHL released the finalists for the award, and not without controversy:

Each of these players performed at high levels this year & were huge components of their respective playoff appearances. However, the defensive aspects of the game aren't very cut & dry. The most glaring metric is goal differential, but we all know +/- isn't necessarily a reliable stat. So aside from that, how do we measure defense? Defensive zone puck retrievals, zone exit %, in-zone expected goals-against, & high-danger shot share most holistically capture defensive impacts. Among other things.

Patrice Bergeron should & probably will win this year's Selke. Hardly news, as he's been a finalist in ten straight seasons & won four in that span. Is that good? He had arguably his best defensive season of his career this season & had the best puck possession numbers in the NHL. And per JFresh Hockey, his defensive impact could not have been better relative to his peers this season:

Bruce Cassidy, Head Coach for the Boston Bruins, is obviously a fan of Bergeron's game. When asked about his Captain's defensive impact he had a simple but elegant message:

Aleksander Barkov, another perennial Selke guy, was also nominated. Barkov is arguably the most gifted defensive forward in the NHL in terms of raw skillset. His underlying stats suffer a little bit from how attack-heavy the Florida Panthers were this season, but he still had excellent defensive impacts. Barkov is a top-ten face-off performer, plays all situations, & managed 88 points on top. And in each the defensive metrics mentioned above, Barkov is near league-top:

Elias Lindholm is where the controversy begins. Lindholm is a major piece of a Stanley Cup contender; he takes more face-offs than all but two NHLers, plays all situations, & still scores at a high rate (82 points). However, his defensive impacts are good but not great. And given that he plays with Tkachuk & Gaudreau almost all of the time, it's tough to credit him with individual defensive impact. However, he is second in +/- for what it's worth. Especially when Tkachuk carries most of the load defensively for that unit:

Now for my opinion. Auston Matthews probably should have received that third nomination over Lindholm. In addition to scoring 60 goals, Matthews led the NHL in takeaways with 92 (per MoneyPuck.com). The next closest was Leon Draisaitl with 74. Furthermore, his in-zone defense was impeccable this season. His ability to transition quality defense into consistent offense was the best in the NHL this season. While his zone exits & retrieval numbers aren't great, his balance of defense/offense is worth consideration. And I'm not even a Leafs fan!

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