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.
PLUS: Solid loss by the Coyotes last night. Also, a PLUS to the recently acquired Dahlbeck, who has played mostly with Andrew Campbell. They played more than Moore and Murphy last night, and despite the state of the season, the depth on the Coyotes' blue-line is something to behold.
OEL, Stone, Murphy, Gormley, Moore, Dahlbeck, Campbell, Gormley, Samuelsson. That's nine players - all of whom are probably good enough to at least skate regular minutes on the bottom pairing of a decent NHL team - to start your rebuild with and that is a great thing. At least four (maybe five) are probably nothing more than bottom pairing guys, but you do need those guys, and Stone-OEL-Gormley is one day going to be a crazy top three.
PLUS: The Playoff race - which I recently mocked, though mostly due to none of my teams being involved in it - is tightening up and last night's victories by Vancouver, Winnipeg, Minnesota and Colorado and losses by Calgary and LA certainly make it even more interesting.
I like that Colorado and Dallas have somehow found a way to claw their way back into the race, even if it's still a long-shot that they could make it.
Not that long ago, it looked pretty obvious what would happen: LA would supplant one of Calgary or Vancouver, Winnipeg and Minnesota would get the Wildcards, and that would be that. Now with Dallas getting Seguin back, Colorodo surging and LA and Winnipeg flailing a bit, it's getting much more interesting.
PLUS: Seven games on a Sunday. I love when the NFL is over, I really do.
MINUS: The L.A Kings. Stop messing around and secure your Playoff spot already. Jeez. A team who has one two Cups in the last three years either has no business fighting so hard to make the Playoffs. The Season starts in October, they should make sure their players know that.
MINUS:Carey Price for the Hart. Worse, it seems unanimous. It's OK to speak out against the Zeitgeist - and this kind of unanimous unquestioning acquiescence to the automatic notion that Price is a shoe-in is disturbing.
Sure, he's had a good year, but goalies shouldn't win the Hart because they have their own award.
PLUS: Eklund's idea the other day about making the cross-bar a couple inches higher is a great one. If you look at the time when Gretzky was getting 200 points, the goalies were half the size. I don't think two inches would be drastic, but since you're never going to get the goalies to wear smaller pads, it's a good idea.
The NHL is going to finish the year with no 100 point scorers. That's less than half of Gretzky's best year. They've tried everything else, to no effect, so why not this?
MINUS: Mainstream broadcasts that don't even bother to pay lip service to statistical analysis. They might as well call the various panels shown in the intermissions the "Opinions Made up Out of Thin Air and Based Purely on Feelings and Reputations Panel."
A Friday night TSN panel featuring Aaron Ward, Ron Wilson and Bob Mackenzie on the topic of Nazem Kadri was particularly embarrassing since none of the panel members seems to be aware that despite playing mostly with Mike Santorelli and Daniel Winnik, Kadri's 5v5 production is comparable to Thornton, Datsyuk, Turris, Nugent-Hopkins, Sedin, Giroux and Couture.
Any of those guys seem like second line players?
Kadri has seven less ES points than Nicklas Backstrom, who is in line for a scoring title and plays with Alex Ovechkin. Seven points. And the panel called him at best "An average second line centre" without even giving the option of "high-end first line centre" on their quiz.
We're talking about a 50% possession player on the Leafs.
The Leafs.
Based on his 27 ES pionts and complete lack of quality wingers or PP time, I think it's fair to say that if given wingers who could score, a little more ice-time and a role on the first PP unit, Kadri could easily have 60 points right now, placing him squarely in the top ten at his position. His high Corsi shows he can prevent scoring chances against.
So, at worst Nazem Kadri is a top 20 centre in the NHL and TSN just had three "experts" tell an audience of millions that he's barely a decent second-line option.
That is how reputations get made and also why people shouldn't base their entire analysis on them.
PLUS: Hall and Oates. And I say this without a trace of irony. The kings of unintentional comedy and two dudes who show a complete lack of self-awareness, also happen to be pop music geniuses operating on a level that is equal to Brian Eno and just below John, Paul and Dylan.
They might lack the art of those other guys, but no one writes a hook like Darryl Hall, who also happens to have the voice of an angel and has written 19 top ten songs.
PLUS: Horrible Bosses 2, Need for Speed, and Air Force One I am on a bad but entertaining movie hot-streak.
Get Off My Plain!
MINUS: The Walking Dead I'll probably keep buying the comics, but the show is done. Too depressing and the lack of some kind of end-game or ultimate purpose for the show just makes it boring. Plus yeah, you changed, everyone's a zombie and nothing matters. I get it.
Like, shut up and kill some zombies and quit whining. Haven't seen something go from such great heights to such low quality since Eminem's career.
PLUS: This goal is still the best: