I think its fair to levy some criticism at Raddysh. The Leafs definitely aren't utilizing him to his full abilities on the PP (and in fairness it's firing at a high success rate so I'm not sure I really care) but 0 goals is still zero goals. There was a clip during the Calgary game of his shaking out his hand/wrist. I hope its that he's playing through something because of the other injuries on the roster because 20 goals wasn't likely repeatable but they definitely need 10+ from him in the long run. That being said he has 8 points in 15 games. I was hoping for 55-60 points out of him for at least the first 1-2 years of his deal. He's playing below that pace right now but hes' also shouldering a far bigger defensive burden.
I thought this was two games in a row that were pretty poor from Cowan. A lot of bad puck decisions. He's young. It's going to happen. He still had a primary assist and was trying. Its just a good reminder that he's not there yet as an every day star.
Nylander.....man, that was just a poor effort. He's not looking quite as explosive and some of those defensive efforts were just not good.
McKenna has 11 points in his last 12 games after going pointless in his first three professional games. He's probably like 3 years away from finding his NHL body (put on weight next year, find the right balance to maintain speed the year after, hit the sweet spot after his ELC is done) but holy hell is he going to put up points.
The 4th line looked like a 4th line last night. A lot of trying and not really a lot of production. It gets exposed sometimes that Hiller likes to play them a lot and when they are generating chances its great but they did a lot of nothing last night and he kept going to them.............which is a byproduct of the 3rd line just being a collection of guys. Being down Tavares and Marchenko really exposes the 3rd line as two guys who are AHLers centered by a decent defensive center.