Follow @james_tanner123 PLUS/MINUS is the NHL's worst stat, however, if you care about that, you probably don't even watch the games anyways. Measuring anything is crazy - it's the internet, just guess and then get really, really defensive about your position!
PLUS: Toronto Maple Leafs.
I have waited my whole life for a team like this. Mitch Marner is a rookie and as is as fun to watch as Phil Kessel in his prime. Auston Matthews and William Nylander are dominant every game: They're both 55% players, and Matthews is averaging more than 4 shots per game (for perspective that's just short of Ovechkin numbers) which currently makes him the NHL leader in shots for /60 and total shots (among forwards).
If he keeps that pace up, its a 40/50 goal season.
Rookies like Brown, Zaitsev and Carrick are all doing amazing as well and they aren't even being talked about.
Nazem Kadri is playing out of his mind. ( 6 G 9 P, 54%)
This is the only time in my life I have been able to say the Leafs are the most fun team to watch in the entire NHL. It won't be long before they are also the best.
PLUS: Speaking of things that are the best: Columbus 10 Montreal 0
What a hilarious game. I knew regression was coming, but not all at once!! The Canadiens should still be happy - they are basically guaranteed a playoff spot already and their best player didn't play that game. Still, pretty wild to see a ten-spot in a hockey game.
Next thing I know, it's actually 6 am.
PLUS: I did a Fat-Boy Triple Header: which is 3 movies in a row, eight pounds of your kid's Halloween candy and about six slices of left-over pizza.
The triple-header was as follows:
Bad Moms: Thought it was hilarious. I like when they flip the typical guy comedy and do it with ladies. Kristen Bell was one of the funniest characters in any movie, ever. Compared to other comedies I have recently watched, other than Popstar (which is the actual funniest movie ever made) it's the best by far.
Masterminds: Pretty good, not as funny as the cast suggests it should be. I wouldn't have believed that a movie with Kristen Bell would be funnier than one with Kristen Wigg, but it's true.
Suicide Squad: Like all the other DC movies, I liked it way more than critics did. I guess it would have been better with an R rating, but I liked it a lot. I am just a sucker for these movies, I don't really care if they're good "films" I just like being entertained. Seems to me though that people just make up their minds before they see a movie anyways.
PLUS: Don Cherry. I think sometimes Don says things that I don't agree with or that seem ridiculous in 2016, however I still tune in to watch him every week and he still has the ability to make you start crying in the middle of a hockey game, which is weird.
I absolutely love the way he brings up Remembrance Day every year because I think it's important and once you're not going to an educational institution, it seems like no one even acknowledges it.
MINUS: People who rake leaves. Ever heard of a lawnmower?
PLUS: The Coyotes won a couple of sweet games this week (and got smoked on Friday). I get frustrated with the ice time they give to older players over young ones, but honestly, this team is just as fun to watch at times as the Leafs are.
Chychrun, Duclair, Domi, Strome, Crouse and Dvorak. Hell, even Rieder and Dauphin. The team is stacked with talent, Louis Domingue is the real-deal and they are going to be very good very soon.
I think - and I hate to say this - that the Smitha and Hanzal injuries (he's out with, I think, a serious case of rug burn? or was it a baking injury? I can never keep it straight) could have been a blessing in disguise. Forcing the team to recall Dvorak (who has played since like he wasn't a fan of being sent down) and play Strome at the same time could be the best thing to happen
PLUS: Louis Domingue. Specifically, the game he absolutely stole from the Predators on Thursday. I have never seen anything like it- the Predators had the puck for the entire overtime period and despite getting injured, Domingue robbed them on chance after chance then made one of the sweetest saves of the year off Forsberg in the shoot-out.
PLUS: The Oilers are the Best in the West (also a killer BBQ Sauce). Who could have called this? Only the world's sexiest hockey blogger, that's who. (And I think you know I'm talking about Adam French here, right?).
MINUS: The lack of respect for facts. Tuesday may in fact be the most important day the world has seen in years and if people respected facts there would be no choice.
You don't get to make up your own facts (or maybe now you do? you shouldn't! ) and the reason people think you can is because the media puts takes any topic and instead of putting four experts on the panel, they put two guys from the right and two guys from the left. That's false equivalency. Not everything has two sides to it that are equally plausible.
I weep for the derision of expert culture.
MINUS: The way the NHL, the writers and guys on TV and the fans treat any player who goes against the grain.
An NHL player has an infinitely rare skill and makes a ton of money for those who use him. He has an extremely short window in which to maximize his profits and if he doesn't get them, some fat cat owner does.
What Jacob Trouba does is his business. He is a grown man. I hate when people say he should fire his agent. His agent works for him. How come we always just assume hockey players are so stupid that they just dumbly listen to whatever their agents say?
The guy wants out of Winnipeg and since its November, who can blame him? I fully support his reasoning and his right to do so. Maybe you don't (though that aligns you with the fat-cats over the regular guys) and that's cool. But don't condescend to the guy and pretend he's some moron getting bad advice.
MINUS: So many NHL broadcasts are terrible. What's with the guy in the middle of the bench? All he does is blab BS over the play-by-play that I actually want to hear.
Most other sports only have one colour guy. Get rid of the guy between the benches.
Also, stop talking about faceoffs so much. I don't want to get into the faceoffs don't matter debate because people just don't care about things like math and reality, but I think we can all agree that they get talked about on TV way, way, way out of proportion to their actual importance.
MINUS: We interrupt this column to declare Claude Girioux and Jacob Voracek to be criminally underrated.
MINUS: There's something wrong with either the parity caused by the salary cap or the way the standings are tracked when Vancouver can lose eight games in a row and still be two points out of Playoff spot.
They should be completely eliminated, their roster and the way they are playing is an embarrassment.
MINUS: When Willie Dejardins is inevitably fired this week it will be complete BS. I don't know, maybe he isn't a very good coach - but how could anyone know?
Jim Benning has made garbage trade after garbage trade and now he'll can his coach. Everyone from Trevor Linden on down needs to be fired, the Sedins need to be traded and they need to rebuild like the Leafs did.
Just a thought, but let me be President of the team and oversee the rebuild. I can't do any worse than Linden (and you'd never catch me hanging out with Stephen Harper, that's for sure).
MINUS: Not suspending Kadri for that hit. He's basically my favorite player in the NHL but that was an example of something the NHL needs to punish.
I think there is a bit of misconception about Dylan in the sense of we're not happy with his progress or we don't like what we've seen so far," Chayka said. "I'm extremely positive with the strides he's taking. They're not all on the ice right now in games, but off the ice and in practice he's gone from being a guy that quite frankly made it with skill his whole life and talent alone, now all of a sudden he's becoming one of the hardest working players. That's just a necessary component of being an NHL player.
The Coyotes are going to be awesome. Dylan Strome is going to be a superstar.
PLUS: Domi and Duclair. I don't care if they have combined for one goal between them so far. If anything, that lack of scoring is going to come due and give the team a huge boost. Both are awesome playesr. Don't get down on them just because they haven't had any success this year.
PLUS: This:
XXOO
All stats: Corsica.Hockey