PLUS/MINUS is the NHL's worst stat, however, if you care about that, you probably don't even watch the games anyways. Measuring anything is crazy - it's the internet, just guess and then get really, really defensive about your position!
MINUS: Team Canada's World Cup Management.
Adding Couture to the team to replace Jamie Benn makes sense, but why isn't Courture on the team to begin with? He's one of the best players in the NHL.
Same with Taylor Hall. How they left those two off in favor of Marchand, Carter, Duchene, or even Getzlaf is insane to me.
On defense they added Bouwmeester for Keith while leaving off PK Subban. While JB probably isn't appreciatively better or worse than Keith, you can make a case that Subban is better than any player defensemen Canada has on their roster. So leaving him off is pretty bad.
If you're really into handedness and think they have to add a lefty to replace Keith, then Giordano is a much better choice than Bouwmeester.
It's a weird thing to complain about, since Team Canada is likely the favorite even if they enter their "B" team, however this roster construction is extremely odd. The guys who choose the team obviously know what they are doing and have chosen to build their team based on guys they personally like rather than taking the best 23 players. At the least, it's an interesting strategy that warrants comment.
If they don't win, how are they going to explain leaving several of their best players at home?
PLUS: It's still bizarre that Team Canada's possible best player will be playing for the gimmick team. (A gimmick I kind of like, by the way.)
PLUS: I didn't even know this video existed, but it's got Rickey, Julien, Bubbles, Gord Downie and Don Cherry. It's just about the greatest thing I've ever seen, music-video-wise anyway.
PLUS: I thought this was really interesting, from friend of the blog and one of the best Hockey Twitter personalities/ stats experts:
Basically, he is saying that that is the statistically best defense Canada could construct. Whether or not you agree - and I'm guessing many of the people who seem to get our of bed everyday just to rip this blog won't - the point is to illustrate the vast difference between a vision of the game that is objective and just takes the numbers at face-value, and one that holds to more traditional methods of player evaluation.
I don't even want to get in an argument about stats 'only telling a part of the story' (worst cliche ever, btw) or whatever, I just want to point out that thinking beyond what actual GMs do and what TSN and your local newspaper tell you is OK.
PLUS: The Coyotes this week hired Dawn Braid to be their skating coach. Braid becomes the first female full-time coach in NHL history.
When you consider that it's still difficult for a women to even get on TV to talk about hockey (because Doug Maclean and Jeff O'Neil just set the bar too high) it shows how far hockey has to go to be inclusive.
The NBA has female referees, the NFL has a female assistant coach, so the NHL isn't leading the way here, but it is an important milestone. A women holding a high position within the sport can be seen as nothing but a good thing.
No surprise that the team to make this move is the team with the 27 year old GM. I think that, in hockey, as I do in basically every other part of society, the exit of the baby-boomers and the shift of power to people who have grown up with inclusiveness as part of their education from birth is an amazing thing to behold.
As my generation takes more power in this world, things like women in sports will become more common and things like the Brexit and the Trump Campaign will come to be seen as the last grasp at power from a generation who's power is fading fast. Good riddance.
MINUS: Maybe it's just me, but as I enter my mid-thirties, I find that some things I used to think were amazing have not aged well.
Specifically, Fight Club, Goodfellas and Kevin Smith were all things I thought were among the best things ever when I was twenty, but which I know find nearly intolerable.
PLUS: The Avalanche hired Jared Bednar as their new coach. I don't known too much about him, but I salute it any time a team hires a new coach and doesn't just recycle an old and known commodity.
I would have put the odds of the Avs hiring Bob Hartley at "extremely high," so this is a solid step away from that crazy train of thought.
MINUS: I took a lot of heat yesterday when I said that Pekka Rinne was among the worst starting goalies in the NHL, even though that is a statistical fact.
I had some trouble embedding the S.A.V.E chart yesterday, but here it is.
The chart comes from Ian Fleming / @ImFleming16 and if you want to have a ton of fun with his Hero Charts for Goalies project, it's here http://ianmichaelfleming.wixsite.com/dispellingvoodoo
MINUS: The Leafs giving a tryout to Brandon Prust. Nothing against Prust, but I don't like that the Leafs are recently seeming less progressive and intelligent than previously thought. Taken as a whole, the early acquisition of the largely unproven Andersen , the signing of Matt Martin, the selection of less skilled draft choices and now the hiring of Prust all make it seem like Lou Lamoriello has forced the team to re-adjust their philosophy.
This might not be necessarily true, since we're always just guessing at what we think team's or certain manager's philosophies might be, and maybe this was the Leafs' plan all along. Who knows? It does at least seem like some adjustments have been made, and I don't know if that is a good thing.
I for one can't wait until Lou retires and Kyle Dubas is fully in charge.
PLUS: You know what has aged well? Synthesizer-based pop music.
MINUS: For the rebuilding Leafs I think it's weird that Tyler Bozak, James Van Riemsdyk and Leo Komarov remain on the team when those are their main assets for getting better.
PLUS: The Coyotes' acquisition of Lawson Crouse this week was nothing short of brilliant. Whether they keep or flip him, creatively adding a high-quality prospect to your system is always a good move. Chayka has done nothing but impress.
MINUS:Neighbors 2 is among the worst sequals to any movie I have ever seen. There was no need for that to exist or for me to watch it. One star.
MINUS: The USA Men's Basketball team. What a joke to see the players act like they care about it at all. They are professional millionaires who just destroyed a bunch of amateurs.
There has probably never been a less meaningful medal in Olympic history (other than the other times the USA Basketball team won). Any random NBA team could enter that tournament and win Gold, so what's the point?
If Canada played hockey in a tournament that didn't feature Russia, Sweden, Finland or USA, how excited would you get about winning? Like, do you cheer when they score against Belarus? What a joke.
PLUS: My brother got us tickets for a pennant race game between the Red Sox and Blue Jays. I am pretty certain its the first time I've got tickets to a game that actually mattered, but considering I mostly only go to games if it's free, maybe this shouldn't be a surprise to me.
MINUS: The rumours that the Oilers are going to trade Eberle, Yakupov or RNH. The Oilers should do no such thing. Trading any of those guys is just a terrible idea. You don't need to pay a high price for defenseman when you can take risk-free flyers on so many guys.
MINUS: Yesterday, this blog suffered a meltdown in the comments section when people went berserk over me suggesting that David Rundblad is a good hockey player.
In 113 career NHL games played, Rundblad has a CF% of 55.11.
If you "score adjust" it, so that you throw out the game where there were big leads and as such "garbage time" he's still at 54% which is elite possession territory. He is also rated very favorably in all relative stats, meaning how he compares to his teammates in context.
He allows 29.89 shots against/ p 60 for his career, which is about the same as Alex Pietrangelo and less than Erik Karlsson.
He scores .82 points/60 minutes, and for comparison, over the last five years, Shea Weber's p/60 is .90.
So, just to be clear: David Rundblad has played just over one full season of NHL hockey, during which he put up stats that show he is a very good first pairing player or an elite second pairing player.
Factor in that he is the ever-sought-after right-handed shooting d-man, that he is 6'2 and only 25 and I think that AT THE LEAST he should be given a shot at a full time job. You can say you watched him, that his 'hockey sense' is bad, that he 'makes bad decisions' or you can site his clearing waivers multiple times as proof that teams know something I don't.
But, none of that stands up to scrutiny. It's entirely possible that teams pass on a player because other teams did, building a kind of psychological phenomenon whereby the player's skill and success is completely ignored.
The fact is, when a player measurably puts up near-elite numbers in the world's best hockey league, it seems foolish to ignore them.
While players tend to peak at age 24, there are examples where talented players - for whatever reason - do not catch on with a team until later in their careers than usual. In baseball, Jose Bautista was essentially David Rundblad until the Blue Jays gave him a chance and, at the inexplicable age of 27, he became one of the MLB's best hitters.
There is no guarantee with Rundblad. It's possible he somehow puts up great numbers while secretly sucking at hockey. I don't know how that is even possible, but maybe. Still, at worst, it seems he'd be worth a try before you sold your soul for an already-established defenseman.
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