Each Conference has a good four or five teams competing for the Wild Card spots, which is all you can hope for. We spend a lot of time complaining about the things the league gets wrong, but the fact that in the final month of the season, 95% of the games take on some kind of playoff-like aura is pretty cool.
MINUS:The NHL's divisional seeding is still the stupidest thing about a sport where eight cross checks to the head isn't always a penalty, and some games have different point values than others.
With Tampa, Toronto and Boston in the same division, one of the league's best teams (almost certainly Tampa) is guaranteed to be done in the first round, which is just idiotic.
PLUS: A 1-16 seeding where you play a 2-3-2 travel schedule is infinitely better than what currently exists. Luck would factor less in results, the best team would win more often, and you'd get exciting potential Stanley Cup Finals like Toronto vs Montreal.
MINUS: Any kind of play-in idea where teams finishing 8-10 play some kind of short-series to make it in. Watering down the regular season is idiotic and I hate this idea with a passion.
PLUS: 5 Goal Games. If people could spell his name, Zibanejad would be a huge star.
MINUS: Coyotes GM John Chayka. I am - for the most part - a fan of his work, but trading for Taylor Hall and then standing pat the rest of the way is incomprehensible to me.
PLUS: Captain Raymond Holt.
MINUS: Locking up Christian Dvorak, Nick Schmaltz and Clayton Keller to long-term deals before they earned them seemed smart at the time. You get the full primes of players at potentially team-friendly long term rates.
Unfortunately, I think he might have bet on the wrong three guys.
Keller I give a pass on. He's crazy talented, has decent peripheral numbers, and has gotten a little snake-bit.
Schmaltz is talented, but he has nine goals, and just 43 points in 70 games. His underlying numbers aren't terrible, but they aren't exactly great either.
Dvorak is the worst. 38 points in 70 games, playing mostly as the league's worst #1 centre.
When playing with Hall, Dvorak's numbers get way worse, suggesting that he's not suited to the #1 role at all.
It's possible I'm just frustrated here, or that the coach's style leads to bad underlying numbers, and that it was smart to lock these guys up like they did. At the time I thought it was a genius move, now I'm not so sure.
All the players are still really young, so it could work out. Especially if the cap takes a major jump.
MINUS: I've seen so many condescending takes by good writers who should know better regarding the Hart Trophy.
Things that imply anyone who isn't going to vote for Leon Draisaitl is an idiot.
Yes, the point totals are awesome, but he's also racking up that many points because he is one of the league's worst defensive players. The fact is, the Oilers don't do very well with him on the ice 5v5. If you're going to be the NHL's MVP that shouldn't be the cases.
Even if Draisaitl does deserve the MVP, I find the tendency of people to be condescending about alternate views concerning. Not that I've never done it before, but when I do it it's because I'm right!
MINUS: Todd Warriner and Colby Armstrong are the two guys I'd pick to co-host an intermission if I was trying to parody NHL intermissions. If I really wanted to screw with people, I'd use David Amber as the host.
I watch a lot of hockey from virtually every broadcast in the NHL and they almost all suck. I could produce a better product with $20 and an hour of my time.
PLUS: Gritty.
MINUS: I wanted to make fun of the XFL then I realize Triumph the Insult Comic Dog is going strong, they keep making stupid Star Wars Sequels and most of the guys I know my age couldn't help themselves from paying $200 to see Rage Against the Machine so I guess it's just good business.
MINUS: Rage Against the Machine. My god people, there was some good music that came out in the last 20 years.
The one thing that I hate the most about Rage Against the Machine is how much everyone loves them while completely ignoring the politics, which are 100 x better than the music, which is OK at best.
If you haven't listened to any new music since the 1990s, the new Danny Brown album is great (and it's produced by Q-Tip so you can keep your Y2K street cred), and the new Tame Impala is even better.
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