PLUS: The Coytoes are 2-17, with zero regulation wins, 25% of the way through the NHL’s regular season schedule. This the worst hockey team in the history of the world. But at some point, it’s kind of funny.
MINUS: The complete and utter stasis from Coyotes management. They sent Dylan Strome down two games into the season, and Lawson Crouse down a couple games later, then, other than that, nothing really. There are two lines worth of fourth liners dressing on any given night, and people like Dvorak, Perlini and Fischer have been awful.
MINUS: Sending two teams to Europe to play games in the middle of the season. Pure greed, nothing else.
PLUS: A Tribe Called Quest We Thank You for Your Service. This came out late last year, but should be getting recognition for being one of this years best records, simply because there wasn't enough time left last year for it to resonate. Its a masterpiece by a band that has multiple masterpieces, but it's crazy for a bunch of 40/50 year old rappers to be able to get back together and actually live up to the hype. Unreal.
PLUS: Ottawa getting Matt Duchene. I know a lot of people ripped them for what they paid, but those people vastly over rate mid-to-late first rounders. A team about to lose one of their best player to Free Agency (Turris) replaced him with a vastly better version (with a WAY higher ceiling) at a minimal cost.
They get to keep Duchene for at least an extra season, probably more, he’s two years younger than Turris, and they have to make moves to win now because Karlsson and Andersen aren’t getting any younger. This move was a smart risk/reward decision by the Senators.
MINUS: The Predators got the second best player in the deal, paid the highest cost, and gave that player a huge overpayment. Kyle Turris is a decent player, but I wouldn’t want to be paying him $6 million per year into his thirties. I get that they improved their roster without detracting from it, but they could have picked up Bozak for free, not resigned him and been in roughly the same place right now.
PLUS: Braden Holtby. He may have the worst name a human could have (seriously, why do people give their kids the sound a donkey makes for a name?) but he is the NHL’s best goalie. I thought he’d have some serious regression now that his team wasn’t the best defensive team in the NHL, the best overall team and the team with the best blue-line. But I was wrong, he is awesome. Holtby is playing every bit as good as he did last year and if the season ended right now, he’d get my vote for the Vezina. (Which is meaningless, because I don’t have one, but I always send it in anyways).
MINUS: Peter Chiarelli is pretty much agreed upon as the worst GM in the NHL, but it’s actually worse than you thought because – like pretty much everyone said on draft day – Matthew Barzal is becoming a huge star.
Barzal was part of the picks PC sent to the Islanders for Griffin Rienhart. Not me – because I think I might have actually given him a thumbs up for that terrible trade at the time – but almost everyone panned the trade at the time, saying Reinhart was bad and PC was also. Much like letting Yakupov go for nothing, trading Eberle for Strome and Hall for Larsson, Chiarelli’s moves have somehow always been correctly panned the day he makes them.
For a team that managed to blow through four first round picks, and six top three picks, over the last seven years, their current roster is pathetic compared to where it could be. As someone who covers the Arizona Coyotes, the management of the Oilers is embarrassing.
PLUS: Stranger Things: I love it. Can’t wait to watch the rest.
MINUS: You can’t find a mainstream writer who’ll say who won a trade. They try so hard not to criticize anyone and I don’t know if it’s for fear of losing access or fear of being wrong. But it’s so so so yellow.
PLUS: If the season ended today, Morgan Rielly would have to get serious Norris consideration. He has been amazing on the Leafs blueline so far this year, and is on a 60+ point pace.