The Friday Four is a collection of thoughts and information on some intriguing player storylines from around the NHL. On deck this week is:
• Why Mark Stone deserves to be in the Hart conversation
Mark Stone, Vegas Golden Knights
Watching Mark Stone skate is not an aesthetically pleasing experience. It’s choppy, gangly and borderline awkward at times. You certainly won’t confuse his stride with Connor McDavid or Quinn Hughes, but Stone always gets where he needs to go.
The Golden Knights forward has never let his unorthodox skating slow him down. A two-time Selke nominee, Stone has established himself as one of the best two-way forwards in the game, and he arguably has the best stick in the league. His ability to strip and bat pucks out of the air is unrivaled and Stone can turn offence from defence in a heartbeat. That’s why he was a no-doubt lock for the Canadian men’s Olympic team that will be aiming for a gold medal next month.
Stone’s brilliance was on full display a week ago, when Mitch Marner made his return to Toronto. The veteran had two goals and an assist against the Toronto Maple Leafs, refusing to let Marner’s homecoming be spoiled by the home side. Stone clearly elevated his game for a teammate, but the reality is he’s been doing it all year long and has been one of the NHL’s best players in 2025-26. He’s been so good that Stone probably deserves to be in the early Hart conversation.
Let’s be clear, Stone isn’t going to win the award this year. Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, Nikita Kucherov and Macklin Celebrini are probably too far out in front of the rest of the pack. Plus, you’d have to scroll pretty far down the list of the league’s leading scorers to find Strone’s name. With all that said, if you did have to make an argument for Stone and the Hart, it actually wouldn’t be that difficult a case to lay out.
The only reason Stone isn’t a top-five scorer this season is because of injuries. He was sidelined for 16 games earlier this year, yet he still has a whopping 53 points in 37 games, good enough for a 118-point pace.
When you break that down further, Stone ranked sixth in the NHL with 1.44 points per game heading into Thursday night, behind only McDavid, MacKinnon, Kucherov, Celebrini and Leon Draisaitl. Stone’s numbers are even better when it comes to points per 60, sitting behind only McDavid, MacKinnon and Kucherov. In total, Stone has at least one point in 32 of his 37 games this season, which equates to finding the scoresheet in 86 per cent of his outings. That’s the highest percentage by anyone this year who has played at least 35 games.
If you add all that up and factor in Stone’s defensive prowess, he’s been an incredibly valuable player for Vegas, and that’s really proved to be true when he’s been out of the lineup. During the 16 games Stone missed, Vegas won just six times and managed just one goal or fewer on four occasions. He’s also been a very important player for Jack Eichel. This season, Eichel has only been held without a point in 13 games, and more than half of those came with Stone out of the lineup.
What’s working against Stone here is the time he’s missed. Even if he played every game the rest of the way, and given Stone’s injury history, that feels like a real long shot, he’d still only finish at 66 games. Mario Lemieux has the fewest games played by any Hart winner in the modern era over a full season, capturing the award in 1993 in just 60 games.
But that isn’t a great comparison, as Lemieux still led the league in scoring that season with 160 points. Stone is never catching McDavid or MacKinnon in points in 2025-26. Still, what Stone has accomplished this season is really impressive. He has an excellent chance to smash his career high of 73 points, something you rarely see from a player of Stone’s age.
One thing that immediately jumps out when you watch Stone play is his passion for the game. Whether it’s one of his goals or a teammate’s, Stone’s wild celebrations have become a sight to behold and can sometimes distract from just how good a player he is. Don’t let that fool you, though. Stone is one of the league’s most complete and unique players, quietly putting together a season that only a handful can rival.
Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Toronto Maple Leafs
Any hope of the Toronto Maple Leafs making something of their season faded away over the past week and a half after a disastrous homestand. The Leafs went 0-4-1 against five of the league’s best teams, free-falling down the standings in the process. Toronto may be mathematically alive, but for all intents and purposes, it’s time for general manager Brad Treliving to put up the For Sale sign.
That means the Leafs should be testing the market on all players without a contract for next season, including Bobby McMann, Scott Laughton, Matias Maccelli and Troy Stecher, but there should be very few untouchables on this roster. Toronto may find its best returns are on players that aren’t rentals, and that means making some tough choices. Oliver Ekman-Larsson has arguably been their best defenceman this season and has carried more than his share of the load with all the injuries the Leafs have dealt with on the backend. He plays hard, has an edge, can move the puck and quarterback a power play, all things the Leafs want in a blueliner, but that’s what will make Ekman-Larsson so attractive to others, too.
Not to mention his cap hit, which is sitting at a very friendly $3.5 million for two more years beyond this one. That’s just a drop in the bucket for most teams now that the cap is going up.
Given that Ekman-Larsson wouldn’t be a rental and that he has a Stanley Cup to his name, it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility for the Leafs to get a first-round pick for him leading up to the deadline from a team that’s desperate for help on the blue line.
Ideally, Ekman-Larsson is someone the Leafs would like to keep around. If the plan is to retool and try to come back next year and be competitive, he brings a lot of the elements they’ll need to do just that. That said, Ekman-Larsson will be 35 this summer, and his trade value may never be higher than it is now. Toronto paid a first and Fraser Minten for Brandon Carlo, and now it appears the Boston Bruins are off to the races again.
Maybe the Leafs can’t get that much for Ekman-Larsson, but the return likely wouldn’t be far off. For a team that needs to get younger, faster and acquire more talent, an Ekman-Larsson trade may be too good to pass up for the Leafs.
When the Minnesota Wild traded for Vladimir Tarasenko last summer, most people didn’t think much of it. All the Detroit Red Wings asked for in return was future considerations, as Tarasenko was essentially a cap dump to unload a contract. The 34-year-old was going to be a bottom-six player for the Wild after tallying just 11 goals a year ago.
However, Tarasenko has been a pleasant surprise for the Wild, already scoring 13 times and giving them a much-needed secondary scoring. He’s been particularly important for Minnesota recently when they were decimated by injuries up front. The Wild endured a stretch where their entire second line was sidelined, as Joel Eriksson Ek, Matt Boldy and Marcus Johansson were all out with injury.
Tarasenko stepped up with his teammates ailing, scoring five goals and eight points in a four-game stretch to help his team get through it. The Russian forward was an excellent stopgap in the top six for the Wild, but his most valuable role may be yet to come.
Minnesota looks like a top-five team this season after trading for Quinn Hughes, and they no doubt have aspirations for a lengthy playoff run, which is going to be much easier said than done. To do so, they’ll likely have to go through the Dallas Stars and Colorado Avalanche in the opening two rounds. You could argue the Avs and Stars are the two best teams in the league.
That’s why Tarasenko’s playoff experience could be invaluable for this group. He has a pair of Stanley Cups and 121 post-season games under his belt, so Tarasenko has proven he can turn it on when it matters most. After the Florida Panthers acquired Tarasenko at the trade deadline two seasons ago, he went on to score five goals and nine points in the playoffs to help them capture their first Stanley Cup.
Now he’s hoping to help the Wild get out of the first round for the first time since 2014-15.
Matty Beniers, Seattle Kraken
If you were ranking the main reasons why the Seattle Kraken have surprisingly found themselves sitting in a playoff spot in late January, goaltending would be at the top of the list. Seattle ranks fifth in team save percentage, and a big part of that is Philipp Grubauer having an excellent bounce-back season.
The second reason might be Matty Beniers, whose recent play has helped the Kraken surge up the Western Conference standings. Beniers has been on fire of late, notching 19 points in his past 20 games and now sits in a tie for the team lead in scoring.
That puts Beniers on a 58-point pace, which is a welcome sign for a player who hasn’t topped 50 points in two seasons. The former-second overall pick impressed as a rookie with 57 points, but has disappointed since, tallying just 37 and 43 points respectively over the past two campaigns. He’s still only 23 years old, but the Kraken were no doubt hoping he’d make more of an impact on the scoresheet at this point, given how high a draft pick he was.
Beniers need to be a big contributor offensively for this Kraken squad. Seattle does not have an elite player that can carry them, so if they aren’t scoring by committee, it’s going to be very tough for them to win with any regularity.
Beniers leads the team in scoring with only 37 points, and the Kraken only have seven players who have hit 20 points on the season. They also only have two players who have totalled 15-plus goals.
Looking at the other teams Seattle is battling with in the Pacific division, they all have the luxury of high-end talent to lean on. Players like McDavid, Celebrini, Eichel and Leo Carlsson can carry their teams on their backs at times if the situation calls for it. The Kraken have to scratch and claw for every goal they get, and a 58-point season for Beniers may not seem like a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it could make a major difference for the Kraken.