Dave Hyde: Panthers’ Aleksander Barkov knew the player he wanted to be — and has become him

FORT LAUDERDALE — When Aleksander Barkov first met with new Florida Panthers general manager Bill Zito in 2020, it was natural to talk of Barkov’s native Finland. Zito played on a lower-tier pro team near Barkov’s hometown of Tampere. He then had an inordinate number of Finnish players as an agent.

They even talked of a Finnish restaurant renowned for chicken wings, and their enjoyment of it, before getting down to the business of hockey. After two hours, Zito thanked Barkov for taking that much time. Barkov then said something telling of his previous seven seasons.

“This is the longest I’ve talked to anyone in the organization,” he said.

Do you want to know how Barkov was helped to rise from a good player to one of hockey’s best? Why he won a second Selke Award in four seasons as the game’s best defensive forward? How he’s become Dan Marino on skates, Dwyane Wade on ice, or whoever your North Star of greatness is among South Florida athletes as Barkov leads the Panthers to a second consecutive Eastern Conference finals?

Start here: Barkov was allowed to grow into the greatness he envisioned. Take that meeting. A small example in the big picture. But through his first seven years there were as much talk inside the Panthers about what Barkov lacked — lacked the offensive numbers, lacked the physical play — as what his high-shelf talent brought — center strength, high-end playmaking, defensive skill.

Suddenly, the Panthers valued Barkov for who he was. Rather than changing him, they encouraged him. He had the necessary traits of greatness starting with a humility grounded in the desire to improve. Each year he added a new component to his game. Strength one year. Speed another. He had a vision of what he needed.

“There’ a line when kids come in the league, they say, ‘I just have to go out and play my game,’ ” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “No, you don’t. You don’t have a game yet. Then they get to a point where it’s true, they understand the team game and have a game and just go out and play it.

“What’s great about Barkov is he didn’t settle on a game. He didn’t decide at 26 that, ‘This is who I am as a player and I don’t need to add anything.’  He constantly added to a game. Improvement isn’t just these five things I’m good at that I’ll get better at. Great improvement is these five things are my core and I can add these two. I can become a different player, a well-rounded player.”

Barkov went home from losing the Stanley Cup Final last spring understanding what few do after a great run but this team’s top players grasped. They had to get better. For Barkov, that meant losing some weight to be quicker. He decided to get more physical and doubled his 52 hits in last year’s regular season to 104 this year. Not a banger. But a presence.

His top game was again there all season. You can check the boxes from his career-high face-off percentage (57.3 percent) to team-leading plus-33 rating to him being among the league’s top 10 players’ for minimal time in the defensive zone (35.3 percent) and optimal in the offensive zone (46.3) in five-on-five play.

“It was amazing,” said Barkov, 28, of being named the Selke winner on Saturday. “ I never take anything for granted. I’m really thankful. But I’m playing on a really good team in a really good organization. Things are done right here. Obviously, systems help a lot. And without the players I play with, nothing would be possible.”

He singled out Sam Reinhart, who finished fourth in the Selke voting. That kind of top-line talent is why the Panthers are in the Eastern Conference finals for a second consecutive year.

But what’s as obvious as Barkov’s numbers is the acceptance of his ways has accompanied his ascent to NHL hierarchy. Six years ago, when he was named the team’s captain, the whispered hope inside the organization was the team’s best player would grow into a louder voice. But loud isn’t him — except on the ice.

“We all have a perception of what great leadership looks like,” Maurice said. “It’s almost a caricature, the infallible person that’s always take-charge up front, grab the room, lots of words. But that’s not real. It’s not.

“For any one of these guys to be a leader by far the most important is they allow their own personality to be what drives them. You can’t change how you’re wired. He’s figured out over the last two years how to be Barkov, not feel necessarily the pressure to reach out to a different style of leadership but become very good at his own.

“What he’s done this year is sense what we needed in games. That’s kind of a vision of leader. ‘What’s wrong? What do we need? How do I make it better — and not just go out and play my game. I play the game I’m capable of, but the game my team needs me to play.’ I find that in him for sure.”

Barkov has five goals and eight assists this postseason. As importantly were plays like his block of a open-net shot by Boston’s David Pastrnak to save Game 6. Maurice said Barkov’s full Game 6 was, “incredibly impressive and even more so when I went back and watched it on video.”

He’s a fully matured voice, just as he envisioned, driving for more.