This column is the only appropriate place to mention the plus/minus stat. If you're still referencing a player's plus minus in 2020 you're just being lazy.
PLUS: The Pacific Division playoff battle. The NHL's parity is a little much sometimes (there should definitely be more than three points separating 15 teams or whatever it is) but the Pacific is still really fun to watch this year.
PLUS: Obviously the Coyotes finally being a contender after all these years is great for the team, city, NHL and me. Hurray!
PLUS: The new debut episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. It's a show that is 20 years old and its most recent 'sode was perhaps the highlight of it's run. The 30 funniest minutes of TV I've ever seen, perhaps.
PLUS: Anthony Duclair. Told you so.
MINUS: If the Coyotes don't play Barret Hayton in their lineup as a regular once he's healthy.
MINUS: The Coyotes could be so much better if they did things like play Taylor Hall with better players. I hate the fact that the first day he arrived they stapled him to Dvorak and said that's that.
Not that they've been bad, but Dvorak doesn't have the offensive ceiling, and Hall drives play so well that he'll actually make up for the deficiencies in the games of Keller, Schmaltz and Kessel - the three options he should be playing with.
PLUS: The All-Star game, generally fun and enjoyable.
MINUS: Those targets! Sometimes when everyone agrees on something, they're actually right. Those were terrible.
PLUS: 50 Year of J.D Salinger work has been announced to be published. This is the best thing ever. Better even than if the last two Song of Ice and Fire novels were announced, or a new season of 24, an 8th Dark Tower novel or an R.E.M Reunion.
PLUS: Audrey Hepburn. Turner Classic Movies. Middle of the day pizza.
PLUS: Mike Johnson on Leafs Lunch just destroying every bad main-stream-media take there is. There's something to be said to hearing the smartest guy in hockey on the radio repeating everything you always say.
MINUS: People who are like "if team X misses the playoffs then it's a disaster and you should fire the coach/GM"
Now this is sometimes true, but right now there are four teams - Washington, Pittsburgh, St Louis and Boston that are guaranteed to make it. Anyone else loses three coin flips in a row and they could be done.
This is great for the NHL since the Playoffs essentially start tomorrow, but the bad takes will be impossible to endure.
MINUS: People angry about Green Day swearing at the NHL allstar game. Funny, the same morons who are mad about swears have no problem giving their two year-old a tablet and letting him rot his brain.
Here is a fact: if, instead of letting your kid play on a screen, you said the F word to them, your kid would lead an improved life.
If anything, Green Day didn't say enough F words. I watched the game with my son and I certainly said more than they did. (For instance every time I saw the bald head of Pierre McGuire I was forced to drop copious F-bombs).
MINUS: Anyone who refuses to change their mind when confronted with evidence. This is a cowardly, craven, dishonorable thing to do and it makes you into a trashmonster. Just saying.
PLUS: Usually SNL is a two-sidsing embarrassment, but last night's cold open was hard hitting, and 100% truthful.
PLUS: William Nylander. Told you so!
PLUS: Being classy, and wearing denim.
MINUS: Also, all podcasts suck. It's amateur radio you idiots!
MINUS: People who look at their phones in public should have their phones smashed. I made an ill-advised trip to the mall the other day and every third moron was walking around with earphones on, looking at a screen.
There should be a guy who's paid by the city and he goes to the mall and everytime some douche walks with their head down, on an angle, bumping into normals, that guy jumps out and smashes your phone.
Then he verbally berates you until you cry, hopefully.
Seriously, do not look at your phone in public. Be a human and interact with other humans.
PLUS: To anyone who has the balls to embarrass someone who looks at their phone while in a conversation with a human. We need to make cellphones the new cigarettes (in the social pariah sense).
PLUS: Michael Gormley, Told you....
Just be better!
Also, Sports!