One of the few Blues highlights from today’s season-ending loss in Los Angeles was a spirited scrap between Chris Stewart and Kings rookie Brandon Jordan Nolan.
Few notes:
-- It seemed Nolan bit off more than he could chew with Stewart, even though Nolan’s been a fairly active pugilist over the last two years. Stewart goes 6-foot-2, 225-pounds and dropped the mitts six times this season.
-- Regardless, the fight gave the Kings a spark. Dustin Brown scored the game-winning goal about five minutes later.
-- Stewart got roundly razzed on Twitter for the shhh routine. “Chris Stewart tried the [Max] Talbot ‘shush’? Down 3-0?” wrote Seth Rorabaugh of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “That should be an automatic one-game suspension.”
-- That said, Stewart was one of the few Blues that improved as this series went along. After being a healthy scratch in Game 2, Stewart responded with a pair of goals in Game 3 and finished today with four hits, almost 14 minutes of ice time and the decisive win over Nolan.
-- It won’t make up for his poor regular season, but it does send Stewart into the summer on a high. That’s important, because he’s a restricted free agent on July 1, along with fellow forwards TJ Oshie and David Perron.
Note: As you can see from the strikethrough, I mixed up Jordan Nolan with his older brother, Brandon. Apologies for the error -- not my finest hour.