For a second year in a row and for the third time in his career, Florida Panthers’ captain Aleksander Barkov was awarded the Frank J. Selke trophy as “the forward who best excels in the defensive aspects of the game”. The 29-year-old veteran now only trails two players for most Selke wins: former Montreal Canadiens’ player, coach, and GM Bob Gainey, who has four, and Boston Bruins legend Patrice Bergeron.

Is a Selke in the cards soon for a Canadiens player? Well, as things stand, Nick Suzuki is starting to garner some votes for it, but he’s nowhere near Barkov’s level, not yet in any case, the Panthers’ top line center got 1363 points consisting of 96 first place votes, 31 second place votes, 28 third place votes, 14 fourth place votes and four fifth place votes. He had 526 more points than his teammate, Sam Reinhart, the runner-up.

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Suzuki finished in 13th place with one second-place vote, two third-place votes, two fourth-place votes, and five fifth-place votes. That gave him a total of 28 points, six more than Toronto Maple Leafs rival Auston Matthews, who finished in 14th place with one first-place vote, two third-place votes, and two fifth-place votes.

Suzuki had the best season of his career so far, putting up 89 points in 82 games while posting a plus-19 rating and spending an average of 20:04 minutes on the ice every game, which is just nine seconds less than Barkov’s workload.

Unlike Barkov, though, Suzuki wasn’t on either one of his team’s penalty-killing units. Since Martin St-Louis decided to turn Josh Anderson into a penalty kill specialist, it allowed him to use Suzuki in more attacking missions, including double-shifting him on the power play in the final stretch and during the playoffs. That’s not sustainable, but it goes a long way in showing just how vital the Canadiens’ captain is for his team.

Photo Credit: Sam Navarro-Imagn Images

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