More importantly I realized this was in the “retrospectacus” category, I just hope the leatheroleum covers were worth the extra money.

Maybe some of it is mitigated by the way Babcock chose to utilize him, but I didn’t really feel that his late season play was enough to mitigate his early season problems.  When Babs was rotating him with Salei (which I’m still convinced was a Jedi Mind Trick aimed at Rusty rather than an ACTUAL opportunity for Kindl to steal his spot), he gave Kindl the “easy” matchups and Salei the hard ones. 

Kindl
March 30 vs. STL (10-3L) 18:42 TOI 0 p 0 PIM 0 SOG (-2 rating)
March 26 vs. TOR (4-2W) 15:09 TOI 0 P 2 PIM 1 SOG (-1 rating)

Salei
March 28 vs. CHI (3-2 OTL) 13:49 TOI 0 p 0 PIM 0 SOG (-1 rating)
March 23 vs. VAN (2-1L) 15:00 TOI  0 P 0 PIM 1SOG (even rating)

Neither of those players were terribly impressive during that stretch, but Salei’s were slightly better against two playoff teams that racked up a combined 214 standings points while Kindl was slightly worse against also-rans who earned 172. 

I don’t want to make a four-game stretch the defining moment of Kindl’s entire season, but it’s a part of the season-long narrative of Kindl having the opportunity to grab the #6 spot by the balls and not let go and instead gently cupping it so it could move around freely. 

I did expect more of him this year and I’ll continue to expect that going into next season.