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: This endless, monotonous season of disappointment will finally end this week. The Coyotes won't be making the Playoffs, but the fact that there's just over a week until they start is pretty exciting anyways.
PLUS: Oliver Ekman-Larsson (who's overall stats package is unbelievable for a guy who plays on one of the worst two teams in the NHL) scored two goals last night, giving him 23 on the season and a three goal lead on Erik Karlsson for the NHL lead by defensemen.
He also had an assist for the three-point night, giving him 43 points - only 18th among defensemen, a ranking that doesn't do him even close to justice. The Coyotes leading scoring is OEL, at 43 points, second is Yandle with 41 (and only 63 games) and then Sam Gagner with 40.
The teams best scorer, Boedker, missed half the season with a spleen injury. The fact is, with so little weapons at forward and Yandle running the PP for most of the season, OEL just didn't have the chance to get more points.
MINUS: The fact that the NHL has perhaps the worst, least qualified voting system for awards possible. In an age where many of the best writers and informed hockey analysts do not work for mainstream media, perhaps its time to come up with another way.
The awards in the NHL are a joke - not in the way people call things they don't respect a joke, but in the literal sense of the word where mentioning the Norris Trophy winner makes people laugh.
Obviously, no matter how you pick the award winners not everyone will agree, however, I doubt that there is anyone who thinks the awards are right even half the time. The problem? They seem to be incredibly reputation based.
And so I can tell you with relative confidence that OEL will not be getting even a Norris Trophy nomination, despite the fact he deserves to win it. His team is 29th and he is a -19 and that means he's disqualified, and that is pathetic.
The NHL is a professional league and should have professionals whose only job is to pick the awards winners. That way, the best players would actually win and not be dependent on some writer who nominates three of the five defensemen he can name without going on the internet.
MINUS: Devan Dubnyk for the Hart. I am sorry, but that is just stupid. Sure, what he's done is impressive, but Minnesota has a really good, balanced team and he's only been on it for half a year. By getting good goaltending, they became one of the best teams in the NHL. The thing is though, they already were one of the best teams, they just had horrible goaltending. Nashville and Montreal are teams that are not as good at their point totals but have them because of outstanding goaltending. I argue there is a difference with the Wild and that they are -goalies aside - a better team than either Nashville or the Canadiens.
In my opinion both Rinne and Price deserve Hart nominations ahead of Dubnyk, who's only played 36 games for the Wild. Although, I wouldn't vote for either of them to win it and I wouldn't nominate Rinne at all.
MINUS: Lack of Tarasenko Hart talk. I would say this is because traditionally you must win the scoring title, or the goal scoring title to be called the MVP.
There is also a stupid bias about being "most valuable to your team" meaning if you're on a deep, balanced team like St. Louis, you might not get the nod. But Tarasenko is only 10 points back of the scoring title and he plays a minute less, sometimes two, per game than most everyone else in the top ten.
But unlike everyone else in the top ten in scoring, Tarasenko is ranked 120th in PP ice-time per game with just 2:39 on average, every night. Comparatively, Ovechkin and Seguin get close to 4:00.
Tarasenko leads the NHL with with 48 even-strength points. His 54.84% CF is fantastic.
If he wasn't on such a deep team, and they gave him more PP time, he'd likely be leading the NHL in points. He's a possession driving ES monster and all five of the best goals this year were scored by him.
And yet, he won't be nominated because there are morons out there who will vote for Devan Dubnyk. Right. If I had a vote, I would vote Tarasenko for the win. I'd vote Price second and Ovechkin third.
PLUS: Boedker, Hanzal, Chipchura. These are the only three Coyotes forwards who the team has to bring back next year. I'd also like them to bring back Reider and Gagner, and I'd accept Doan and Erat.
That means at least five new forwards next season. But I'd like to see at least eight.
MINUS: Korpiskoski, Vitale and Crombeen. Sorry, nothing personal.
MINUS: That there are people who watch and write about the Leafs who would seriously get rid of Kadri and Gardiner.
In the NHL, if you aren't a top three pick or a superstar, you are likely not going to play your best hockey before you're 24, the age of both kadri and Gardiner. If the Leafs didn't learn anything from what's happened with Steen and Stralman then they should just fold.
Rebuilding teams don't get rid of 24 year old former first round picks. Especially when anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of statistics can make a case for them being two of the most underrated players in the NHL.
MINUS: People who are in love with JVR. Can't play D, has all the heart of the scared Care-Bear and he quit on the season sometime in January.
Yet, he's huge, talented, will come close to 30 goals in a down year and has a great contract. The Leafs would be insane NOT to kick-off their rebuild by getting max value for JVR. He'd be the first guy I'd move.
PLUS: To the NHL Player "Safety" Department.
PLUS:To me, for that hilarious joke where I pretended that the Player Safety Department isn't a complete disaster.
MINUS: To Crosby leading the NHL with 81 points and there being only one fifty goal scorer. The NHL should acknowledge that goalies and their big-ass equipment and the fact that you can't score along the ice because they don't even need to bend that far now to make their pads flat have ruined the game (or come close).
Someone should figure out the square footage available to NHL shooters in the 80s and raise the crossbar enough to make up for it.
Also, it's not that impressive that Ovechkin is the only 50 goals scorer. You know what impressed me? Wayne Gretzky being the only 90 goal scorer.
PLUS: I was at my friend Johnny's and he has the whole collection of 80's WWF rubber wrestlers. Including Ko Ko B. Ware. The only thing better would have been if he had some old-school transformers.
PLUS:Jiri Hudler, top ten NHL scorer. Who called that?
MINUS: If the Sens and Kings fail to make it, I think the Playoffs will be much worse than they can be. Not necessarily because those teams are better or more interesting than the teams who might make it in their place, but because I think there's always something fun about the teams that make a late season run and just get in there.