[Cali Panthers Fan]

Here's my take on this debate, that seems to endlessly come up on this board. Part of it is that they were both drafted in the same year, so comparisons will always come up right away based on draft class.

I'm going to start by saying IN MY OPINION, so people don't get all cranky with me. Remember, I watched every Flames game since Monahan was drafted, and I've watched Barkov regularly since he was drafted (probably about 80-90% of the games). My opinion comes from regular viewings of both players.

Monahan is one of the better pure shooters in the game. He puts up a fair amount of goals, usually by being in the right place at the right time due to his high hockey IQ, but also just purely from his ability to shoot the puck. He's a better than average passer as well, and his hands are OK, but nothing spectacular. Acceleration is an issue, but he skates fast enough to get to his spots on the ice. He's Ok on the cycle, but is better suited to playing along the walls or in the slot.



Now Barkov has just about everything you want from a top line center. He's big, but not any more physical than Monahan. However, he's very, very good on the cycle and along the boards, deftly moving the puck for his linemates to do something off the wall. He's got elite vision and hockey sense, always in the right place and always knows where his line mates are. Here's a clip of a comeback against the Rangers where he is the biggest difference maker on the ice in back to back goals. It doesn't even start great because he happens to lose the face-off, but just follow him in this sequence and see what I see almost every time he plays. This isn't abnormal either, this is how he always plays. It's just the results aren't always there. He scores on a simple PP set up where the rebound comes to him at the side of the net and he simply buries it with little effort. He battles to win the next face-off in the zone, goes to the net to screen the point shot, works hard to gain control of the puck on the boards getting it to point man for a shot, goes right to the front of the net in a quiet zone when Jagr shoots and hits the pots (if there's any rebound there, he's going to score again), gets the puck again in the high slot and passes through 2 defender sticks to Jagr at the side of the net for the tying goal.



But those are 5 on 5 sequences during the game where he scales back on the fancy stuff quite a bit. In this clip you can see his incredible skills on display in the shootout.



But yet, you see his power and skill combination at times on plays like this (skip ahead of 0:50 mark to see his play, even though he does set up Huberdeau nicely on the first goal).



Unfortunately, nobody collects clips of defensive play, so I can't show you how well he does down low in his own zone, transitioning up ice to his line mates, but he's always good and sometimes he's dominant defensively. His Corsi and other advanced stats support this with a CF% of 55%.

I'm betting that it's just the lack of opportunity to watch Florida play that leads to the narrative that Monahan is better, but outside of having some injury problems, Barkov is better in almost every way.

That's coming from a guy who owns a Monahan jersey and loves the way he plays.