Follow @james_tanner123 Since +/- is the NHL's worst stat, I thought it would make sense to appropriate it and make it useful as we review the best and worst of the past week in the NHL.
MINUS: Taking a stand on either Final or Finals. Seriously, who cares?
PLUS: Lobster. To live in a world where lobster is widely available to eat, and to have the mental abilities to not think about what happens to lobsters when they are caught, stored and cooked, so that you can enjoy it, is truly a miracle. A delicious miracle.
PLUS: Joonas Donskoi, who not only helped me win many DFS pools this past season, but also happened to score the winning goal last night. The Sharks could be down 3-0 but instead it is 2-1 and we have a series.
I don't really care who wins, but it seems important that it be a good series.
Lucic is going to get paid for what he has accomplished so far, and not what he will accomplish in the future. The way he plays, I can almost guarantee you that he won't be effective very far into his 30s, he is currently 27 and only has one 30 goal season to his name, over five years ago.
I don't care how big he is, how mean, whatever. Signing him is a mistake for the Oilers. You could get three good defensive players who barely score for what Lucic will cost you.
Prediction: Whoever signs Lucic gets a contract roughly as stupid as Anaheim gave Ryan Kesler.
The last thing the Oilers need to be doing is spending money on high priced forwards. Overrating a second liner because he's big and used to be on the GM's old team is a panic move for team who only needs patience.
PLUS: Joe Hill came out with a new book this week. The Fireman reads like prime-era Stephen King and if that means anything to you, you must go get this book. It is fantastic.
PLUS: Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping. It is perhaps the greatest movie of all-time. I rate it fifty-six stars and wouldn't mind paying to see it again.
Maybe it's not for everyone, but it is as if they made the exact movie I would want to see. In my personal opinion, this movie is ranked with Bruno and Old School as one of the funniest movies ever made.
MINUS: Buying tickets to go watch the draft live. Are you insane? What could possibly be more boring? I am a nerd and I will watch the draft on TV. Tape delayed so that I could fast forward the boring parts. But going to watch it live? If you aren't a player hoping to get drafted or a media member, it's ridiculous to go.
MINUS: Open Letters. You write one, you aren't a writer. Open letters are the worst kind of pretentious, sanctimonious garbage there is.
PLUS: The NHL combine. Round up a bunch of kids and make them do physical exercises in front of a crowd of weird fat guys with clip boards and (I imagine) I-Pads. Judge who you're going to pick in the draft by making him ride a bike until he pukes. Enjoy all the anecdotes about how the worst player in every draft wins the combine.
What garbage.
It's enough to make a guy puke on the cot in his mom's basement.
PLUS: Any kid who skips / fakes an injury to avoid the combine. Also to anyone who can explain to me why Auston Matthews would even bother to show up?
PLUS: Steve Simmons. A lot of people do not like Steve because his opinions are different than theirs. Quick Fact: Steve is a columnist who gets paid for his opinions. He is also one of, if not the THE, most widely read and discussed hockey writer on the earth.
He may be a jerk, he may play fast and loose with the truth, he may not share your opinions on what makes a good hockey player, and he might mock things he doesn't understand. But maybe not - most people that end up as punching bags for a group of elitists never turn out to be as bad as they seem.
But, even if he is, who cares? He's entertaining in perhaps the least entertaining industry there is. The hockey writing world is filled to the brim with informative, competently written (well, sort of) blogs/articles that do not go "over the top" and which shoot for the centre, so as to not offend anyone, and which take soft opinions in order to hedge their bets, should the wind blow another way.
Virtually all opinions are "safe" and "guarded" and "centered" to avoid the possibility of a "hot take." But the thing is, anyone can be boring, safe and informative.
It takes a special talent to be as entertaining as Steve Simmons. People really need to stop dismissing (or worse, wryly mocking) anything that doesn't agree with what they think. Instead of opening the world of possibilities, the internet has become an echo-chamber where people just seek out others who confirm their world-view.
I almost never agree with Simmons. But I have read nearly every column he's written since my dad had a subscription to the Toronto Sun (for the Sports section only, you understand) when I was a kid.
He is easily my favorite hockey writer.
I think people should cut the guy some slack and look in the mirror and ask themselves why they need to only read people who tell them what they already know / want to hear.
PLUS: Hiring Kirk Muller to be "associate" coach. Because that always works out so well. Therrien is a terrible coach who should already be fired, so it makes total and complete sense to hire his replacement, give him status higher than the other assistants and then force the guy he is eventually going to replace to work with him.
PLUS: The Playoffs are good and all, but they are almost over and for everyone whose team hasn't played for two months and is looking forward to the draft and free agency, that's a good thing.
Thanks for reading.