Last year, Tyler Seguin got two Selke votes, which is probably on par with the ridiculousness of Mariano Rivera potentially not getting voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame unanimously on the first ballot when his name comes up. It was so absurd that when told of it, even Seguin laughed in bewilderment. 

Yes, Seguin was second in the NHL last year with a plus-34, but it was largely because he was scoring while skating on a line with the actual Selke winner, Patrice Bergeron. Seguin wasn't an elite two-way player, and calling him a two-way player in general was enough of a stretch. 

Maybe it's because he's a big name and because he was a high draft pick, but people wanted to get ahead of themselves with Tyler Seguin and call him great before he actually got there. The good news is that he is now getting there.  

As long as he's on a line with Bergeron and Brad Marchand, Seguin probably will always be the third-best defensive player on his line, but he's made some real strides this year.  

One of Seguin's best defensive plays of the season came Saturday on the power play, when, after a Dougie Hamilton turnover led to the puck being sent into the Bruins zone, Flyers forward Ruslan Fedotenko and Tuukka Rask raced to the puck. Seguin, who was on the half wall at the time of the turnover, sprinted to try to catch up to Fedotenko, who was obviously going his fastest to get to the puck and break up Rask's shutout. Rask got to it way out of his net and sent it right to Philadelphia's Maxime Talbot. Seguin was back by then and laid out make the save. 

"I told Tuuks I would have caught [Fedotenko]," Seguin said Sunday, and he actually would have.

Seguin made up so much ground on the veteran winger that by the time Rask had the puck and Fedotenko was high in the Boston zone, Seguin had nearly caught up to him. 

“You've got to put your head down and back check in that type of situation,” Seguin said. “Especially with a shutout on the line.”

The play was a lot of things, but it was instinctive and workmanlike above all else. Definitely the type of play that you wouldn't have seen two years ago and probably the type you wouldn't have seen one year ago. 

Seguin’s also been able to find this improved two-way game as he’s been searching for the thing that made him the second overall pick in 2010 -- his scoring touch. After scoring only two goals in the first 12 games of the season and treading water after that, Seguin has picked things up with five goals over the last five games. 

He’s scoring now, but Seguin doesn’t want anyone to think that he was just doing the little things earlier in the season for the sake of breaking his slump. He wants to be a good two-way player, and, perhaps more accurately, he doesn’t want to be the forward on the Bruins that isn’t a good two-way player. 

"I think it's all about contributing as much as you can, whether or not you're scoring," Seguin said. "I'm trying to bring my style of game and bring the things I've learned from watching Bergie as well, just trying to be that complete two-way forward. That's what I want to be." 

Over the offseason, Seguin, who had one more year remaining on his entry-level deal, signed a six-year, $34.5 million extension with the B's. If scoring goals was his priority, he could have waited a year, pulled a Phil Kessel as a restricted free agent and wiggled his way out of town (Kessel's camp was unreceptive to offers from the B's, with the team eventually sending him to Toronto when the threat of an offer sheet left the B's worried that matching would damage their cap situation and, as a result, roster). If he did that, Seguin would have been able to get both huge money (not that he gave the B's a bargain here; what he got was market value) and play in a system that would allow him to score all he wanted. 

For a number of reasons (winning, how well he's been received around these parts), that thought obviously never entered Seguin's mind. Kessel was a far different case, as he wanted bigger money than the Bruins were willing to pay him and he didn't want to play in Boston. Seguin did, and he wanted to justify whatever he got. 

There have been plenty of times in his NHL career when Seguin has looked plenty like Kessel for all the wrong reasons (slowing down in a race for the puck so he won't get there first and get hit), but by and large Seguin has lapped Kessel, who is four years older than him, as far as being a complete player. 

On a team that doesn't have many guys who can only do one thing (well, Tuukka Rask and Anton Khudobin can only play goalie), Seguin didn't want to be the guy who either scores or does nothing. That would stick out like a sore thumb on the Bruins, and it does when he's either shy physically or a step behind defensively. But if Seguin has his way, he's going to reach the point where he's just one-third of a good two-way line rather than being a goal-scorer with a couple of two-way guys who pick up the slack.  

"I think there are a lot of those out there, and they're going to make a career out of [scoring]," Seguin said. "I've chosen what I want to be. I definitely put a lot of pride in my own end, especially since being here -- not so much in juniors -- but ever since I've been here in this system and this organization. Myself, and definitely us as a line, we take a lot of pride in our own zone. That's why it's working on the other end as well."