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: To one of my favorite NHL players of all time, Keith Yandle. It sucks to trade him, but the Coyotes got a killer package and how can you not be pumped about their rebuild?
PLUS: Duclair, Domi, Dvorak, Perlini, Rieder, Samulsson, Lessio, Murphy, Stone, Gormley, Dahlbeck, Moore plus the All Underrated Combo of OEL, Boedker, Hanzal and Chipchura and four draft 1st rounders over the next two years, one of which may just be Eichel or McDavid.
Honest question: The Coyotes missed the Playoffs by three points last year and legitimately believed they could make it this year, making this indisputably the first year of their rebuild so, tell me, has any team ever started rebuilding with this kind of talent all-ready in place?
I would say no.
MINUS: Steve Simmons wrote this in his column today:
The narrative once was that the Leafs won the trade that brought Joffrey Lupul and Jake Gardiner to Toronto in exchange for Francois Beauchemin. The standings don’t agree. Since then, the Leafs are playing .497 hockey and the Ducks are accumulating points at a .638 clip
Like, where is the logic that just because the Ducks are good and the Leafs are bad that the Leafs automatically lost this trade? Gardiner is 24 and it's sad a "professional" hockey writer like Simmons doesn't understand how good he is.
MINUS: Here's another one from Ol' Steve
Another reason why I have trouble believing in hockey analytics: They don’t easily identify Weber and Doughty as the two best defencemen in hockey.
There are virtually unlimited examples of things throughout human history where people did this and it never once turned out that that the data "just can't qualify things like this." I mean, do you think the position of defense is too complicated for math? You know, MATH - the very thing that helps explain the fabric of existence, something just a tad more complicated than the position of defensemen in the NHL?
Here's a crazy thought: if the numbers say that Weber and Doughty are not the best D in hockey, maybe they aren't the best D in hockey.
PLUS: This week's trip to the record store was pretty great. I got a Tom Waits album I've never heard before - Foreign Affairs - which I'm listening to for the first time as I write this, and classic John Prine record - Common Sense - which I'd also never heard. Both are albums by artists that I really like and who I'll probably eventually capture their entire libraries, but the best part of any trip to the record store is buying that one album by a band you've only heard about, but haven't actually heard.
I could easily Youtube any band to see if I like it, but I like listening blind. Sometimes you pick a dud, but since I tend to read publications and talk to people that talk about music I like, this is rare. This week I picked up the self-titled debut by a band called Viet Cong and it is one of the best albums I have heard in ages. A full five stars and if you've ever liked Joy Division, the Fall or like Pornography-era Cure, this is the band for you.
The Jays enter the year with four pitching prospects that practically blow your mind: Aaron Sanchez, Marcus Stroman, Daniel Norris, and Drew Hutchison.
One of those pitchers, Norris, lives in a Van Down by the River and appears to be the coolest professional athlete of all time. Oh, and they also acquired Josh Donaldson - which is a little like if the Coyotes get Steve Stamkos over the summer. So, with the Raptors threatening to win the NBA Championship and the Jays looking good, it is looking to be a great spring in T.O.
Someone just needs to get me a copy of that new Drake CD and we are good to go.
MINUS: Trade Deadline Day. It's always the same: sitting around waiting for news to break and then news does break and some ancient washed up nobody is going somewhere you don't care about for a 6th round pick. Boring.
Still, PLUS to the fact that we got to spend a fun day talking hockey and day-dreaming. Could be worse, right? Just saying it's always a bit of a let-down.
PLUS: I didn't spend one second watching either TSN or Sportsnet. I actually just used Twitter to follow everything, I talked with people, wrote blogs, marked papers and cranked tunes.
It was actually a fun day. Watching a bunch of boring old guys who wouldn't give me the time of day try to fill air-time? Not for me, thanks.
PLUS: That the Leafs starting to rebuild now sort of automatically gets them out of the terrible position they put themselves in by signing Stephane Robidas to a ridiculous three-year contract.
When they were unable to add to their team while trying to compete, his cap-hit and term and play were disasters. Now, with the team not needed to spend to the cap for the next two years, Robidas can be a coach/7th D or go to the minors with virtually no ramifications.
With Lupul, Bozak, Kessel and Phaneuf looking likely to each join one of the other 29 teams this summer, the Leafs will hopefully have learned more about bad contracts and cap-management than any other previous team and who knows - it's plausible what they learned from poorly managing their cap could translate into them being among the best at doing so going forward.
PLUS: The Montreal Canadiens not getting stupid and trading Lars Eller, as was rumoured. This guy is underappreciated for what he does and considering the Canadiens are closer to the Leafs and Coyotes without Carey Price than a first place team should be, moving Eller - who even if he doesn't rack up the points is a very effective player, would have been a brutal move.
MINUS: To this year's playoff races, the lamest I can remember seeing. The East is sort of pretend - I don't really see Boston missing out. In the West, I can almost guarantee that the Wild and Jets are the Wild Cards, unless they catch the Hawks and then the Hawks will be a Wild Card team, but it's all virtually the same.
The main question seems to be: Who will make it between Calgary and Vancouver?
All-in-All, that's a boring Playoff Race.
MINUS: The way people continue to rip on the low quality of both the Coyotes and Leafs after they just both spent a month getting rid of anything that was not nailed down.
Already two of the worst teams in hockey - the Coyotes moved out two of their top-three defenseman and their "#1" Centre. The Leafs changes weren't as drastic, but take Winnik off a team that already can't play defense or Franson off a D-Unit already icing Polak, Robidas and Holzer on a regular basis and it's pretty scary.
Both teams suck, but let's try to keep some perspective, is all I'm saying.
PLUS: The new book I am reading Cryptonomicon is about the coolest thing ever. Highly reccomended. It's by this Ali G looking dude named Neal Towns Stephenson.
MINUS: I was so pumped to download Final Fantasy 1 the other night from the PS Store, but imagine my disappointment when it turned out to be a port without original graphics. Sort of kills the nostalgic vibe and I couldn't even play it. Weak.
PLUS: I'll leave you with this: