No offense, but I think you made a bad read on him. From a technical and efficiency perspective, I much prefer Barton moving in all four directions over Lindstrom. I couldn't tell you if he is more explosive or quicker than Lindstrom (though the later sets a pretty low bar in those regards).
I am a little confused as to why his skating is coming up as a topic of conversation here. He has plenty of other warts I would have expected people to pick at first.
Lindstrom's "weak skating" is a bit overblown. Partially because it just is, and partially because he's so efficient with his decision-making (and has good reach) that he manages to mitigate it.
I only watched one game of Barton's last season. His skating was just not very good. I could be convinced that it was average. For college I guess. His edgework actually looked good in the offensive zone, he appeared to have some confidence with the puck. But in his own end it was a trouble spot.
His biggest wart from what I saw was the lack of panic threshold, as I mentioned in my last post. That's something that sometimes improves as players develop but often doesn't. I don't know where he's at today, but he's obviously impressed enough to earn a contract, so we'll see.