PLUS/MINUS is the NHL's worst stat, however, if you care about that, you probably don't even watch the games anyways. Measuring anything is crazy - it's the internet, just guess and then get really, really defensive about your position!
PLUS: It's finally hockey season. The prelim World Cup games were better than I think anyone could have suspected and now there's less than a month until the regular season starts.
MINUS: Ryan Kesler.
He's massively overrated, he's got one of the worst contracts in hockey and his hit from behind on Shea Weber the other night was so rat-like and disgusting he's forced me to shoehorn a Master Splinter reference into this sentence.
To think, him and Randy Carlyle will now be on the same team, making the biggest question of the upcoming season: who do you cheer against when the Ducks and Hawks play? Do you just hope for a black-out or an earthquake?
PLUS: September prediction: Both the Ducks and Hawks fail to qualify for the Playoffs next year.
PLUS: Team North America is insanely fun to watch. At first I thought the gimmick teams were pretty lame, but all it took was like five minutes of watching this team to be in love with them.
PLUS: Out of Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Nathan MacKinnon and Auston Matthews, all it took was one game to see who's going to be the best player in the NHL. Just the little things Mathews does - his pick that lead to a goal he didn't technically get an assist on, for example - and his speed (he didn't seem to have any trouble keeping up with MacKinnon)........wow.
Still can't believe this kid is a Leaf.
MINUS: People just don't believe you when you try to tell them that Antoine Vermette is one of the worst players still in the NHL. Reputation does a lot for you in this game. It's almost impossible to believe that Marc Arcobello can't get a regular job, but Vermette can.
PLUS: I will be covering Team Finland for the duration of the World Cup.
Upon hearing the news, Teemu Selanne reached out to congratulate me.
"Suomen joukkue on menossa murskaamaan kaiken teille vähän pieniä vauvoja ja syödä haluat
Kaalikääryleet jatkaen hylätä valtaa Ruotsin kuningas," is what he said.
MINUS: Greg Zaun is the absolute worst. He makes Jeff O'Neil look like a competent broadcaster. Hell, he makes Matt Laur look like a competent broadcaster.
MINUS: Team USA not starting Corey Schneider. I'm sorry, I just don't see how a professional hockey coach could consider Jonathan Quick to be the superior goalie - it's factually incorrect.
MINUS: The NHL's worst General Manager becomes more and more aggressively bad by the week, it seems. This week, in an excellent piece by Elliotte Friedman about the Stamkos/Hall/Subban 1/2 hour this past summer, he talks about the Oilers trading Taylor Hall in order to give 'more of a voice' in the room to McDavid.
The only way this could have been more stupid would have been if Chiarelli just came out and admitted he traded Hall because he was a Scorpio.
PLUS: Tom Rowe. This guy just keeps getting it done and I can't wait to see how the Panthers play this year. The Huberdeau contract was like the tenth genius thing he has done since taking over for Dale Tallon.
The best thing about the Panthers was that while they were good last year, they were good in a really unsustainable way. They weren't dominating possession, they couldn't count on Jagr to score so much again, and their defense was an old-school joke.
But instead of sticking with the results, they looked at the broken process and made adjustments no one (except guys like me) would have complained if they didn't make.
There isn't currently a better run team in the NHL.
MINUS: Kucherov hasn't signed yet. Get it done.
MINUS: Everyone keeps complaining about the Leafs defense and overrating Morgan Rielly. Jake Gardiner is the Leafs best defenseman, and Zaitsev stands a really good chance of being as good as either of them. I don't see what's to complain about.
It looks to me like along with Connor Carrick the Leafs potentially have 4 potential stud dmen.
The underratedness of Jake Gardiner continues to be the most perplexing thing in the NHL.
MINUS: The Coyotes defense. It still remains to be seen how exactly this won't be an absolute disaster. Chychrun and DeAngelo could both make it and at least give the team the hope of the future.
But the team is placing a lot of hope in the likely should-have-been-traded Stone and Murphy.
After OEL and Goligoski and before the rookies are effective, we have joke players like Dahlbeck, Schenn and Tinordi, as well as one-dimensional shot-suppressor Michalek.
PLUS: The Tweet of the Week:
No matter how poorly things work out for USA we can assume Tortorella will blame poor effort from his stars. Not his roster build or sys.
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