This isn’t the first season Coyotes defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson has excelled as one of the team’s top talents.
He started to reveal his potential as a No.1 on the back end when he helped the Coyotes reach the Western Conference final in 2012.
During the 2013-14 campaign, he posted a career-high 44 points and only a year ago, he was closing in on a 23-goal total that tied the single-season franchise record for defensemen.
Ekman-Larsson is on pace to eclipse all of his scoring records, but what makes his contributions this season unique is they're a major catalyst for the Coyotes’ pursuit of a playoff berth when many in the hockey world expected the team to stumble at the outset of a rebuild.