Mark Stone, Vegas Golden Knights
Though enhanced stats will not tell us everything about a player's contribution, they do provide details that lead to a clearer picture of his performance. But it can still be difficult to quantify defensive performance. In the case of Stone, who played for the Senators and Golden Knights this season, each of his teams fared better with him on the ice.
Stone's relative shot attempt percentage was plus-8.16, second among forwards to play at least 70 games behind Dylan Larkin of the Detroit Red Wings (plus-9.77). Stone's teams consistently outshot opponents when he was on the ice and he is an exceptional forechecker who had 122 takeaways, 22 more than Florida Panthers center Aleksander Barkov.
Since 2005-06, there are three other seasons when a forward had more than 122 takeaways: Pavel Datsyuk had 144 in 2007-08 and 132 in 2009-10, and Stone had 128 in 2015-16. Stone has a rare ability to retrieve the puck and it results in his teams generating consistently better results with him on the ice.