"PLUS/MINUS is the NHL's best stat, and the only one I use"
- Craig Button*
MINUS: Risk adverse NHL general managers who chicken out on drafting anyone in their draft year. At the start of the season, the #1 ranked player as Nolan Patrick, the #2 was Timothy Liljegren.
Patrcik fell to second and Liljegren to 17th. One guy had a sports hernia the other mono.
Now, if you blow out your knee, or you have chronic back-pain, then I would see why NHL GMs would back off. I ain't no doctor, but I don't think sports hernias and mono are career-long reccuring things you're going to have to worry about.
If a player is good enough to be ranked that high six months from the draft, but then lose ground due to freak injuries, I think it's pretty clearly just an example of recency bias - which is where we give precedence / overrate things that just happened.
This is so obviously a place where almost every NHL team could do better.
PLUS: Crazy thunder storm going on while I write this. Thunder storms are probably my favorite thing in the entire world. Weird that their called thunder storms - it's like calling cows "moos" or pretending that the cow and the moo are two different things.
PLUS: My other favorite thing: two brand new cds for Sunday Morning. Today we have the Fleet Foxes and Jason Isbell.
PLUS: Timothy LIljegren - who is also a Swedish rapper Lil' Jegren - is a player people told me last October the Leafs should tank one more year to target. So that's pretty cool. I don't think any team had a better draft than the Leafs.
MINUS: Everyone ripping the Flames for trading so many picks for Hamonic.
The Flames have a 35 year old starter, and Mark Giordano, their best player, is 33. They also have 15 million in cap space and now have - at worst - the second best group of defenseman in the NHL.
This is a perfectly sensible trade for a team that should load up for a run at the Cup next season.
PLUS: Bored and unsleepable due to a re-affirming of my commitment to cut out nicotine from my diet, I gave the show True Blood a sampling, having never seen it before.
Three 'sodes later, it was 6AM.
MINUS: The way most people were jumping on the Coyotes for trading Smith, and then firing Doan and Tippett was pretty bad.
Reading people calling the situation "toxic" and a "trainwreck" was embarrassing.
The way that some writers attempt to carry water for a group of NHL insiders who do not like any threats to their ridiculous unwritten rules regarding their boys club is just sad.
Much like when Florida fired Gallant, the usual suspects were so so mad about a non-hockey lifer having the gall to take out one of their own.
Forget the fact that TIppett coaches like it's 1999. Forget the fact that he played 38 year old guys with no NHL futures on the PP instead of developing his young players, even when 20 some odd points out of the Playoffs.
Forget the fact that he's been the coach on the same team for almost a decade with zero success. Or that he was the GM's boss in the dumbest MGMT set-up in pro-sports.
PLUS: Firing Tippett was a huge plus for the Coyotes. The only thing they did better was not offering Doan a contract.
PLUS: The Hjallmerson trade was a huge steal by the Coyotes and frankly, inexplicable from the black-hawks perspective.
The Islanders got a haul of draft picks for a lesser dman, while the Hawks got Connor Murphy. Oh man.
MINUS: I know Hamonic wanted to be traded, but the Islanders are such a weird team. Great move by Snow to get Eberle, but then moving a prime player for picks seems like the exact opposite thing to do.
However, if he needed the cap hit and makes a corresponding move, this may become more clear.
PLUS: My new favorite team is the Golden State Warriors. I'm not supposed to say why.
PLUS: The Fleet Foxes new album is probably something close to a masterpiece. These guys are more talented and creative and ambitious than almost any other band making music today.
MINUS: Having to wait all the way until September for the new LCD Soundsystem record.
MINUS: Watching a draft.
MINUS: People have really strong opinions about players they couldn't have possibly ever seen play on draft day. OK, I get it if you've read about all the players and have a favorite - in the first round.
But people who get angry because they don't think a team took the right guy in the 4th round? You need to get outside, get some air, maybe try kissing a girl sometime. (Or a dude, if that's your thing. Just get physical contact and stop talking about rounds two through seven).
MINUS: The Oilers. It's almost unfathomable how poorly Peter Chiarelli has done since being hired by the Oilers. He has done the impossible and made Kevin Lowe seem like a genius.
Trading Eberle for Strome is brutal. Sinking the savings into Kris Russel is damn near incompetent.
But seeing long-rumoured-to-be-going-to-the-Oilers Travis Hamonic go to the Oiler's main rival, for a package worth about 1% what he paid Adam Larsson, has to be the best illustration of how badly this team is being run.
MINUS: The Bruins not protecting Colin Miller. Maybe the worst move in the NHL all week. Other than the ridiculous T.J Oshie contract the Capitals just gave out. So, so bad.
PLUS: The Flyers. Huge score getting the #1 at #2 + a haul of picks and a decent player for a guy who's main abilities only show on the power-play. Philly and Toronto are going to the two best team in the East for a long time.
Washington Capitals Blogger • 
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