It was better for this group to get the first loss out of the way before the WJC18. You'd rather have the wake up call be in a tournament like this.
The defense needs to get better. 5 goals without Hughes is good, and we could also add 1-2 others before the WJC18 to the offense core.
The defense needs to bring up Kleven already. This game also shows that Rowe and Knight can't split games during the group stage of the WJC18. If the game is important, Knight needs to play. Rowe has decent potential and I often think that he plays way better than the stats say, but he does have trouble keeping the puck out of the net.