The PWHL offseason has a couple of months left, which means we still have some Minnesota Frost report cards to hand out. We’re still moving through the forwards, and this time, we’ll take a look at Claire Butorac. She wasn’t a big points producer, but she impacted in other ways, like using her physicality and puck-handling skills.
Butorac stuck to her position and did everything she could to help offensively, but like many of her teammates, she didn’t forget her defensive responsibilities either. In this article, we’ll examine her performance throughout the regular season and the postseason to determine an overall grade. We’ll start with her regular season impact and move on from there.
Butorac Follows Teammates
As mentioned above, Butorac is a lot like her teammates in terms of point-producing. She does contribute, but in smaller numbers, and her main impact is her play without the puck. A great example of this is in the Frost’s defensive zone; when a faceoff was taken, she immediately beelined towards the opposing team’s defender on the point to block any attempted shots. It’s a standard play for most teams, but many players don’t follow through, Butorac did.
She was also rarely caught standing still, which is another mistake many players make. As soon as they stop moving their feet, the opposing team can gain ground very quickly. Butorac also wasn’t shy about using her body when she could. She didn’t throw big hits, but she did what she could to gain control of the puck and push teammates away from it.
She may not have the scoring power of her teammates Taylor Heise, Grace Zumwinkle, Michela Cava, Kendall Coyne-Schofield, or Kelly Pannek, but she still plays an integral role on her team. She provides offense when she can but focuses on her defensive and physical game. For this reason, she earned an A- for her regular season grade. It wasn’t higher because her team could’ve used more offense from her, but it also wasn’t lower because, as stated before, she provided the defense and physical talents her team needed.
Butorac Stays Consistent
Butorac didn’t find a stronger scoring touch in the postseason, but she kept playing consistently. She also contributed one goal and two assists for three points, the same production level she did during the regular season. Her one goal stood out in the postseason, though, as it was the game-winner in double overtime of Game 4 in Round 1 against PWHL Toronto, that helped continue to turn the series in their favor. So, despite not doing better than before in terms of points, she didn’t do any worse, and that’s always a good thing.
She continued to show her strong puck-handling skills and speed to help her team secure their wins, but she couldn’t make that extra step to produce more. However, her work in the defensive zone made up for the slight lack of offense. When the puck was deep in the corner in the defensive zone, she covered in front of the net while her teammates worked to free the puck. It may seem simple, but some teams forget the open side, where an opponent can sneak in.
While defending, she also made sure to quickly move to her position along the boards when they were able to break the puck out. She did the quiet work behind the scenes, like always being in position and doing the right thing at the right time, and that was enough to help her team win.
After reviewing her performance during the postseason, she earned the same grade as she did for the regular season: an A-. She earned a few extra points for scoring a game-winning goal, but her grade remained the same.
Butorac’s Overall Grade
Butorac wasn’t one of the scoring stars, but again, she did what needed to be done and contributed points when she could. With her A- in the regular season and her A- in the postseason, her overall grade stays at an A-. She could’ve been a little more offensively minded, but her defense made up for it.
Related: Areas of Improvement for All 6 PWHL Teams This Season
Those two reasons are why her grade wasn’t any higher and wasn’t any lower. She signed just a one-year deal last season and the Frost have yet to re-sign her so it’s unclear if she’ll be returning to wear the purple or if someone else will pick her up. Hopefully the Frost decide to re-sign her because she appeared to have a lot of untapped potential they could hone in on to win a second Walter Cup.
