"PLUS/MINUS is the NHL's best stat, and the only one I use"
- Craig Button*
PLUS: I don’t really care if the Capitals are doing it with smoke and mirrors, I enjoy covering a first place team a lot.
MINUS: Kid Rock. It’s like if you allowed the NHL Player Safety Department to make a decision that most represents the quality of their work.
PLUS: When Taylor Hall wins the Hart you'll have to choice but respect my hockey chops. I most likely will be the new GM of the Oilers once that happens.
PLUS: After months of hard work, I have defeated the evil Giygas and conquered Earthbound.
PLUS: The Las Vegas Knights. They’re way overrated and definitely not for real, but it’s an excellent story.
MINUS: Brooks Orpik.
MINUS: I was blown away by how many people were defending the kid who chucked his medal into the stands at the World Juniors. Given how hockey ostracizes people for ‘attitude’ problems on a regular basis, and given how often ‘respect’ and ‘leadership’ are venerated in this sport, it’s bizarre how quickly everyone gave this guy a pass.
The fact is, sportsmanship, losing with dignity, acting with respect, and being a decent human being are all more important than winning hockey games. When people make excuses for this kind of behavior, it overshadows that.
MINUS: Cody Franson had the highest Corsi-For Rating relative to the quality of competition he faced in the NHL, and still no one took him. It is pathetic how much group-think there is in the NHL. There really is no good way to explain 31 teams passing on a player who, by any measurement we have to track hockey players, is excellent. Beyond that, he’s right handed, which only approximately 35% of defenseman are.
MINUS: Everyone overrates the Lightning. They aren’t that good.
PLUS: American Assassin.
PLUS: I bought my wife a poster of 100 essential movies for Christmas and you scratch each one off like a lottery ticket after you watch it. It’s been a blast watching and re-watching a bunch of classic movies.
The best one so far was either Rushmore or Annie Hall which had Paul Simon in it. I was so-so on the Graduate, but I liked all the Simon and Garfunkel songs.
The Sixth Sense wasn’t that great on a 20 year later re-watch, but a guy at work never shuts cupboards so now I go upstairs for a coffee and get terrified every day at 10:30.
PLUS: The NHL not going to the Olympics. The Olympics suck. They are a corrupt waste of money and time. Professionals have no business there anyways.
MINUS: Bye weeks really screw you in the hockey pool.
MINUS: When random people start coming up to me in a couple weeks and start talking about figure skating and bobsledding. Figure skating and bobsledding are garbage sports, as is the biatholon, whatever the hell a luge is, karate, ribbon dancing and whatever other garbage people are going to pretend to care about. Nothing is phonier than the Olympics.
MINUS: Jose Bautista leaving the Blue Jays. Bautista is possibly the greatest Blue Jay in franchise history and I don’t even really know how many games I’ll care about this season with no Jose and no Edwin.
PLUS: The play of Jacob Chychrun. The Coyotes are terrible, and this season has been a write-off, but Chychrun has been so good you wonder if the Coyotes might have had a different season if he didn’t miss the first 30 or so games.
Should they draft Rasmus Dahlin, you’d have to think that OEL would then become available. Or they’d have a pretty insane blue-line. Personally, I hope the Canadiens fire Marc Bergerin and use the Karma to win the Draft Lottery.
PLUS: Peter Chiarelli. I think he’s a guy who we can all get inspired from. No matter how bad any of us are at anything we do, we can take comfort that we’re better than the NHL’s most pathetically inept general manager The fact that he gets’ hundreds of thousands of dollars to do a job he is horrible at is something that helps me sleep at night, by reminding me that if I want to write up a resume with enough lies on it, I can start work next week as an architect, submarine mechanic or horse trainer.
PLUS: Speaking of gainful employment, I work all day in an office and I’m starting to have really explicit fantasies about becoming a mailman. I just want to work out side and walk around all day.
MINUS: Braden Holtby gets no recognition. He isn’t leading in any stats categories because his team is so terrible. Andre Vasilesky is ranked as the #1 goalie this year, and I think he’d probably win the Vezina if it was voted on today. But what people don’t seem to account for is the strength of the team. If the Lightning had pretty much any goalie, they’d be fine. The Capitals record, however, is almost exclusively because of Holtby. If you account for team strength, then Holtby has been the best goalie in the NHL this year.
PLUS: I received a box set of my all-time favorite album for Christmas. The album is Being There by Wilco. Reissue, Repackage, Repackage, Double Pack with an Extra Track…….I am a sucker for this stuff, but I love it.
Washington Capitals Blogger • 
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