STATS: Forsling’s eye-popping plus/minus rating

SUNRISE, Fla. -- Gustav Forsling’s regular season was positively fantastic.

A real plus, one might say.

Puns aside, the smooth-skating defenseman wrapped up his regular season in classic fashion, finishing with a +4 plus/minus rating in a 5-2 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday.

In addition to helping the Florida Panthers win the Atlantic Division, Forsling also succeeded in joining some elite company with another outstanding performance in Game 82.

With the dust now settled, his plus/minus rating for the season is locked in at +56.

Yes, +56.

That lofty number not only places him atop the leaderboard in the NHL (he has a +11 cushion on Winnipeg Jets defenseman Dylan DeMelo in second), but also makes him one of just four active players in the league to finish a season with a plus/minus of at least +50.

Of the 79 games he played in this season, Forsling walked away with a negative plus/minus just 11 times and had a rating worse than -1 on just two occasions.

If you want to find the last defenseman to rack up a better plus/minus than Forsling’s +56 this season, you’d have to time travel all the way back to the 1995-96 season (a fun year for Panthers fans) when Detroit Red Wings blueliner Vladimir Konstantinov had a +60 rating.

“He’s leading the league in plus/minus,” head coach Paul Maurice said after a practice earlier this month at Baptist Health IcePlex. “People will say, ‘Maybe that stat doesn’t matter.’ He plays against the other team’s best every single night. That stat matters.”

Since being claimed off waivers by the Panthers prior to the start of the 2019-20 campaign, Forsling ranks second in the league with a +133 rating, placing him behind only Colorado Avalanche defenseman Devon Toews’ mark of +148. In the 30-year history of the Panthers, Aleksander Barkov (+123) is the only other player with a career plus/minus better than +100.

And with his eight-year contract extension kicking in at the start of next season, Panthers fans can count on Forsling to keep adding to his incredible rating for many years to come.

As for the immediate future, the 27-year-old is focused on just staying sharp in the playoffs.

“Everything is working really well,” Forsling said.