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 Coyotes beating the Canucks 5-0 after they suffered two terrible losses to the Stars and Flames earlier in the week. Both of those games were disheartening and I think it was important to follow them up with a good game. Maybe I remain overly optimistic about this team, but this could be the kind of uplifting game that sends them on a winning streak.
MINUS: To the coaches of the Leafs, Coyotes, Lightning and Oilers for under using their good, young players at the expense of veterans. I could except the Lightning from this list because at least they are contenders, but Drouin is probably the best of all the under-utilized players and they healthy scratched him last night.
I know it's tradition and convention to make players "earn it" before getting a top-line job in the NHL, but at certain times this practice is ridiculous. The Lightning are a great team, they should compete for the Cup this year, but Drouin is, after Stamkos, their second most talented player and it seems insane not to play him.
Worse, though, is in Arizona. The Coyote run out Vermette as their number one centre at the expense of Hanzal game-in and game-out. Hanzal has 11 points in 16 games after coming off of a career high 40 in 65 last year. Perhaps Vermette does give them a better chance to win, but that isn't the point. Hanzal has always tantalized with his talent and size, and if healthy could be the teams #1 C and a force in the NHL. But, the team won't know that unless they give him top minutes and since a Cup is not in the cards this year, that seems to me a better course of action than the team is currently pursuing.
You see the same exact scenario playing out in Toronto with Kadri/Bozak in Toronto, which is even worse because Kadri is younger than Hanzal and has a higher ceiling. In Edmonton it remains ridiculous that they don't at least play Yakupov on their top PP where his insane one-timer can be put to use.
PLUS: To the Penguins, Rangers and Refs who had one of the weirdest ends to a game you'll ever see. The Rangers thought they won on a Dan Boyle goal and the teams left the ice and the announcer even started reading the games three stars. Obviously I can't be sure, but I don't think the games three stars have ever been announced before the end of the game before.
Eventually, the goal was called back because Boyle hit the puck twice with his stick. The Penguins went on to win against a deflated Rangers team who had already celebrated their victory.
PLUS: To the Penguins throwback jerseys. They look amazing and the team should adopt them as their regular uniforms.
PLUS: To Ma$e. That guy was great. I'm playing his album right now and it's really underrated. I have a thing for late 90's Puff Daddy records. Now you know my weakness.
MINUS Not just to the idea of putting ads on jerseys which I've covered, but to anyone who writes or reports on the topic without making it clear the idea is abjectly offensive.
PLUS: To the book I am currently reading, The Company by Robert Littell which is about the CIA and the Cold War, and to the the coincidence that I am reading it at a time when the Alexander Mogilny documentary Defector is going to air. The movie, which looks really exciting, is about how Mogilny defected to North America as a teenager in the late eighties at the end of the Cold War. It looks to be fascinating and I can't wait to see it. It airs on CBC November 25th at 7pm.
PLUS: To Connor McDavid and MINUS to all the people using the kid as a springboard for their stupid anti-fighting agenda. Yep, he got hurt. But maybe these people should consider that he probably takes a lot of crap game in and game out, and that he's only 17 and even though he knows he probably shouldn't fight, it's only human nature to lose it sometimes.
I even heard someone blame the team for bad asset management. As if you can make any 17 year old do or not do anything - not even factoring that this particular one is about to become a millionaire celebrity and thus is probably even less likely to listen to anyone than a normal 17-year-old.
Hockey fights are dangerous. They cause injuries and it's clear they are being legislated out of the game by lawyers and sad-sack whiners. But here's the thing: hockey fights are great to watch and they're entertaining. Also, most players like them because they prevent cheap-shots.
I think it says a lot about McDavid that he'll fight if he has to and like Don Cherry said last night, you don't want your star players fighting. But since there is an instigator rule that has relegated the role of enforcer to that of staged fighter, the NHL now has a problem of having its star players fight (Iginla, Subban, Phaneuf, Malkin and McDavid just this week) and an increase in cheap-shots. Too bad fighting is so politically incorrect, because the NHL could solve both these problems by eliminating the worst rule they've ever enacted.
PLUS:To Don Cherry, for not only being the only intelligent person to weigh in on the whole McDavid situation, but also for his tireless promotion of safer hockey equipment and the cool way in which he refused to mention the name brand so that he that what he said would matter and not be misconstrued as having been bought. The NHL should take note.
PLUS: The guy who plays the tunes at the Mighty Ducks arena. Last Friday when the Coyotes were in town, he played this classic tune that I thought no one but me remembered.
The Coyotes have also called up the speedy Lucas Lessio to replace the demoted Dave Schlemko. With Gormely, Lessio and Rieder and McMillan all in with the big-club now, the youth movement (glacial as the pace is) is starting to take effect.
If they also go with a top line of Boedker-Hanzal- Gagner then I'll really be impressed.
Tonight, the Oilers will get back Taylor Hall and hope to avoid a third straight loss. The Coyotes will look to win their second straight. The loser will be in the basement, all alone, after the game. Yikes.
**** This just in: It looks like Dubnyk will go tonight for the Coyotes. Good stuff.
PLUS:To the Christopher Nolan movie The Prestige.Admittedly, this has nothing to do with hockey, but when this movie came out in 2006, I know I saw it, but I didn't remember anything about it or even if I liked it or not. I just saw it for the first time in 8 years on Friday, and I have to say, I thought it was one of the best movies i'd ever seen.
And it has David Bowie in it.
PLUS:This
That's the best play in the NHL so far this year. Wowzers.
Thanks for reading.