If there was a bright spot to emerge from the darkness of last season, it was perhaps the play of Joonas Korpisalo. He progressed rapidly from "that young Finnish kid whose name Tortorella cannot pronounce" to the keeper of the blue ice, when both Sergei Bobrovsky and Curtis McElhinney were down with injuries.
The 22-year old was thrown into the crucible without a lot of preparation or fanfare, being thrown into the NHL net during his first full season of North American hockey -- at any level. The 3rd round pick (#62 overall) in the 2012 Entry Draft had spent the previous two seasons in the top Finnish league, posting his best numbers in 2014-15, when he went 14-13-7 for Ilves Tampere, with a .