Plus/Minus comes back angry

It's been HOW long since I wrote a Plus/Minus? And I let a basketball game get in the way? Geez. Sorry. I'll try to work on that.

PLUS
+Thank you, Mikael Bournival, for being the new Brendan Gallagher. (Sorry, Louis Leblanc, but another kid with a French last name stole your thunder.)

+ George Parros is back! And his mustache will be, too!

+ Thank you to the clueless group of people who sat behind me at the Bell Centre during Tuesday's game. You entertained my followers more than I could have on my own. (I know I used to be much more of a rookie than I am now. But there's a limit to my patience.)

+ I know I'm not supposed to like goalies who do everything right and beat the Habs, but Josh Harding was great in his start against Montreal and has had an awesome season so far.

+ Here are my thoughts on recent episodes of Scandal:


MINUS

- Dear NBC: I want my Parks and Rec. Give me my Parks and Rec.

- Some jerk on sports talk radio apparently thinks that all of the world's evils have come from women trying to break into the sports world. I'm not even going to bother mentioning his name or anything, because who cares. Didn't I already deal with this moron when he called in to The Franchise the last two times I was on?

- So, Semyon Varlamov gets arrested for alleged domestic abuse, and continues to play. Gee, why does the whole "Avalanche goalie hurts wife/girlfriend" narrative sound so familiar? Could it be because Varly's coach did the exact same thing, but most people in the hockey world choose to pay attention to his accomplishments, and sweep his personal crimes under the rug. Roy's anger issues are looked at as yet another of his quirks. It was only problematic when he was basically responsible for that huge on-ice brawl as Remparts coach, because it affected hockey (and was symptomatic of a pretty big problem, one that he might indirectly be to blame for.) The Denver Post claims that Roy is "sticking his neck out" for Varlamov. That's bullshit. Roy isn't taking any risks. He's doing exactly what he thinks is right, which is to ignore the fact that the goalie he's taking such good care of might be a criminal. Roy thinks that this is far, when really it's reprehensible. For some unfortunate reason, people don't care about off-ice violence. Letting Varlamov start games when he should be under investigation, or getting help for whatever issues he may have, just proves that there's a growing culture of indifference towards players' behaviour off the ice. Players aren't seeing any consequences to their actions, even when they need to. If this doesn't stop soon, the NHL will be no better than the NFL.

Stick tap to Wrap Around Curl, who is also angry and disappointed that this league isn't doing anything.