Follow @james_tanner123 "PLUS/MINUS is the NHL's best stat, and the only one I use" - Craig Button*
MINUS: The Blue Jays aren't playing today. That's weak. Opening Day is tomorrow, in the afternoon.......uh, that's a MONDAY you idiots.
PLUS: For the Arizona Coyotes, the season is almost over. And it can't end soon enough. The team has been terrible and considering the optimism, this was the worst year yet for them.
Now ownership and arenas are back in the news for them and it never ends.
At least the future is bright.
MINUS: Paul Maurice.
If there was ever a coach to blame, it's Paul Maurice.
What is a coach's main impact? I'd say defense and special teams. The Jets suck at those. To miss the Playoffs with the roster they have is unacceptable. Peter Tessier told me the Jets would never fire him during the season because it's not their style.
I'll bet you a $100 he's gone within a week of it being over though. Just awful.
PLUS: 11 games on a Sunday.
PLUS: Jackie Moon.
Matthews, Marner, Nylander. It's unreal. Just like I said, the Leafs will make the Playoffs. Just like I said, the Leafs would catch Ottawa. And, just like I said the Leafs are a Cup Contender.
This is a team that blew like 12 second period leads in a game where there's a 90% chance that doesn't happen. This is a team that has lost 15 post-regulation games when post-regulation games are a coin-flip. What I'm saying is, that as good as the Leafs are, they should have a better record.
Add the ten or so points they were robbed of by bad luck and you have a team that is just behind the Capitals and Penguins. They have goaltending, depth and are the NHL's fastest team. They have five first-liners and probably no one wants to play them in the playoffs.
MINUS: I take no joy in the predictable and inevitable collapse of the Senators.
PLUS: Johnny Cougar! Sure, he's like a third-rate Bruce Springsteen, but among the nerds and the completists, he is very underrated.
Stephen King is pretty much my favorite author and has been since I stole Cujo from my dads book shelf and read it way before it was appropriate to do so. To find I can re-read one of his best books like it was new is amazing.
MINUS: I watched the trailer for IT the other day, home alone, during a windstorm. The clip ended, something blew into the side of the house and a little pee almost came out. Very scary.
MINUS: I've been waiting for the third book of the Great and Secret Show for about 20 years. I have almost re-read the first two a dozen times but I always tell myself to hold off until the third one is announced.
At this point I think we'll never see it.
MINUS: The head of the EPA doesn't believe that humans have caused global warming.
This is the most appalling, stupidest, ridiculous, thing I have ever heard. It's as if Scott Pruitt has committed treason against the world. How is it even possible people are so stupid, misinformed, or otherwise ignorant that they'd allow this to happen?
I don't think I'm overselling this as the grossest display of incompetence in government history. Political views aside, this is indefensible. It is factually ignorant. And it's not a topic on which people should even get an opinion: facts don't care if you believe in them.
It's one thing if you're an uneducated person brainwashed by they people who have a vested interest in denying humanity's role in destroying the earth, but to be in charge of the very agency designed to protect against this ignorance is an affront to decent, educated people everywhere.
MINUS: The recent downturn in the fortunes of Columbus, Minnesota, San Jose and Brett Burns. What is going on?
PLUS: Credit to the Blues who had a goalie who ruined my hockey pool season and couldn't stop a beach ball, then traded their best defenseman for futures. Now they're looking good.
MINUS: It's a lost season for the Predators who have an awesome roster and mediocre goalie.
MINUS: The weird and unexplained correlation between quitting smoking and all my clothes suddenly shrinking. What is going on?
MINUS: Me, if it turns out I already made that joke. Either way, it's really concerning. When I wear a white tux, I don't look Pitbull anymore, I look like Stay Puff the Marshmellow Man.
MINUS: Speaking of which, the lack of continuity between Ghostbusters 1 and Ghostbusters 2 always bothered me.
PLUS: Bacon. Gotta go.