“He just kept getting better,” MacDonald said. “His ability to take coaching, whether it’s video or just instruction on the ice and you could see him go and apply what we talked about. More often than not, he executes at a high level. The more information or analytics that are available, the less people look at plus/minus. But when you’re plus-30 every year, I don’t think that’s an accident either.
“That’s a stat that’s not important until it is. If you’re a really good plus, like Finn has been consistently for the last couple of years, and you’re really in the minus bad, that stat starts to mean something when you start to separate yourself from the herd. I don’t think it’s an accident that he continues to do that.
“He makes a lot of really good plays. He just got better. It’s hard to play in the (AHL) as a 20-year-old, as a young guy and he stepped in and was an every-night guy for us.”