Awful game against a terrible team (how on earth did Chicago just beat Calgary?) but nice to have that horrible shutout-less streak over and not be a storyline heading into next season.
- Hirose was impressive. The downside is that he had 2 shifts where he was trapped in a contained defensive situation and that's where you can see the issues and where he is weak and has a lot of trouble winning puck battles. But everything else was very good - composed with the puck, transitions it well, in position defensively, got several shots through from the point. Looks like a player who thinks the game well and isn't wowed by the pace at this level, which is something that Rathbone as an example has never really seemed to come to grips with. Played 20:30 in a shutout win in his 3rd NHL game, including 2+ minutes on both the PK and PP, and that's damned impressive.
- McWard was decent. Showed a surprising turn of confidence with the puck on his stick, only made one real significant mistake when he blindly flung it around the boards for a turnover and scoring chance. Skating doesn't look amazing and is pretty clearly a less polished player than Hirose and a guy who will be in Abbotsford next year.
- when Kravtsov competes, he can be effective. Played with some fire after being scratched and was rewarded. And it's nice that we saw that tonight, but it needed to happen more often in the previous 15 games.
- Bear had a great game against Dallas about 5 or 6 games back and has been poor since. Not finishing the year on a high note.
- Pettersson looks like he's kind of put it on cruise control to ride out the season.
- Boeser keeps producing points while playing poorly.
- really happy for Demko to get the SO. It's been a shit year for him and good that it's ending on a healthy high note. Made a couple very good saves.
