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: The Oilers, winners of five in a row. Once this team gets back Yakupov and McDavid it's going to be scary. I don't really know how a team can be three points out of last in the NHL and two points out of a Playoff spot, but whatever......the fact is, where this team is right now is incredible if you consider that they haven't played a single game all season with their ideal lineup.
Draisaitl and McDavid have never played together. Nurse and McDavid have played in maybe two games together. And yet their hanging tough.
MINUS: People say -- to the point of cliche - "injuries are no excuse." But injuries actually are an excuse. Consider that the team that wins the Cup tends to be whichever contender team happens to get injured the least.
And now, I guess because the Oilers have to pay back the luck that let them get all those #1 picks, emerging star Oscar Klefbom is going to be out for a while with a broken finger.
One day this team will dress a healthy lineup and they will just absolutely destroy the rest of the NHL. About now would be a good time to parlay next year's first-rounder into a defenseman though.
MINUS: It's getting harder to watch the Coyotes every night, they are just pathetically brutal. In five of their last seven games they allowed five goals against. Two of those were against the low scoring Carolina Hurricanes.
I taped last night's game and watched most of it this morning. It was entertaining. Especially at the end where the Canes gifted the Coyotes a point by not scoring on an empty net and thus allowing a comeback.
It's almost comical: the team hasn't won in regulation since November 28th, and they have lost six of seven, and yet, somehow, I woke up this morning to find them second in the Pacific.
PLUS: Last night, instead of spending my Saturday night watching hockey, I went with my wife and another couple to see a local Toronto band that was popular in the early 90s - the Lowest of the Low.
Growing up they were always one of my favorite bands - no else I know sings about Henry Miller - and since they broke up when I was a kid I didn't ever think I'd get to see them. The club was small and it was an absolute blast.
My head hurts so bad today though.
MINUS: If the embarrassment of having Cup Champs and best team in the NHL the LA Kings miss the playoffs wasn't enough to get the NHL to change the objectively stupid way they awards points for wins and losses (!) maybe having eight teams within three points of last place overall, and literally have the league within four losses of last place will force them to make a chance, but that would mean that you think the NHL operates logically.
Clearly, adding points to losers makes the standings artificially close. Since the salary cap already enforces a massive degree or parity, the NHL should move to either three or four points for a win - it's arbitrary - as long as some games are not worth more than others.
It is bizarre to me that the NHL lets some games be worth two points and others three.
MINUS: The cost of my cable bill. Rogers is a horrible company to deal with and I wish they were not so associated with the NHL - it sickens me.
They own my baseball team and it seems like their ruing that too.
MINUS: Rogers trying to act like giving me free NHL games to watch on my phone. Why in the hell would I want to watch hockey on my phone? Ever?
I can tape a game and watch it on my giant TV at my own convenience. The commercial makes no sense either, I mean, who is watching hockey in the middle of the day at the library?
They must think I'm an idiot telling me this is "free" and then building the cost into things I have to buy, you know, like the most expensive internet prices in the entire world?
What a bunch of monsters who run that company.
I don't know why I'm wearing shoes in the house, at night, while watching hockey, but that's how I feel.
MINUS: I am not making this up: Steve Simmons seriously complained that the Leafs traded a first rounder for 28 games of Brian Leetch because that player became possible worst player in the NHL Lauri Korpiskoski.
It's never a bad idea to try to add Brian Leetch to your team, even if it doesn't end up working out. But let's get real here: Tyler Bozak has played 400 games, Korpikoski has played 500......and good for those guys, that's an accomplishment. However, it also means that the NHL is still bad at evaluating talent: just look at the contract Justin Abdelkader recently signed and consider the contracts P.A Parenteau and Lee Stepniak are on.
MINUS: The replay rules are garbage. It's a 'toe in the crease' all over again. If the NHL won't make a mid-season adjustment they are worse than I thought.
Why does it need to be the offseason to fix something clearly broken?
It's just generally boring to see so many teams so close in the standings and have no trades at all to look forward to.
PLUS: Taylor Hall I think he might be the best player in the NHL.
PLUS: Cold pizza for breakfast.
Thanks for reading.