Kinkaid's season on the whole doesn't look like anything great, but grading him on a bell curve, I'd give him a much higher grade than Cory on the season. I really thought he was close to washing out of the league with how he looked as recently as January and maybe even early February. I was very adamant that this season was going to cost him his NHL career, but in the end I think this season has extended his NHL career. I still don't think he really has great starter potential (maybe an okay starter), but he WILL get the first crack at being the starter here next year and he IS the starter for this team right now. He will get the first chance to retain it after this year.
He rarely has allowed stoppable goals in the last couple months. A couple in relief to clean up the mess Cory made in San Jose and that one in Carolina and maybe an early one against Nashville, but those might be the only ones in the last 5-6 weeks. And he's gotten us a couple big wins over tough teams in low scoring games, like tonight against Toronto, Tampa a couple weeks ago, Nashville and a couple of those Pens games. He's actually played the Pens very well all year long.
I have no problem with giving him credit and I was very sure he was going to wash out of the league quickly after this year, which was a gigantic miss by me.
I give him a B+ on the season, Cory gets a D+. It's not that Keith has been that much better than Cory, as much as I expect more out of Cory than I do out of Keith. So a season like this from Keith is holds more merit to me than what Cory did. Cory had his moments in the first half, but he was killing us the last 4 games he played.