And a dump in from the blue line towards the goalie and into a defenseman's ankle bumps someone's Corsi? Hypocritical much?
Plus minus means puck in the net. I think people forget sometimes how the game is actually played or what constitutes as winning.
People dump on it - and with some reason, because there are no good stats that truly and accurately describe 'Good Hockey Plays' .... but go look at +/- leaders all time and you'll find every great defenseman.
Except when you get scored on, it's not necessarily every or any of the skaters on the ice at that current point in time's fault.
Should we kill Lovejoy for being on the ice for that awful soft goal late in the game?
Once again, we've been over this before. Most of the great defenseman that leads plus/minus, also played on GREAT teams.
Alright, let's do this, let's go through them! Larry Robinson, has he ever played on a non-playoff team before in his career? I'm not seeing a year that he didn't play in the playoffs during his career. What I do notice, is how his plus/minus seemed to be a lot better in the 70's when the Habs were a dynasty team. If you look at his career, you'll notice that in the years that Canadiens weren't really the best team in the league anymore, he was still a plus player by a whole lot, but the numbers weren't nearly as high. From 85-86 onward, he never hit +30 again. And before 82-83, he hit +40 seven different times. Never again after that, when the Canadiens weren't a juggernaut anymore.
Bobby Orr? I'm pretty sure his gaudy plus/minus numbers taking a dive, coincided with the strength of his team(s) taking a dive.
Ray Bourque? His teams were making the playoffs every year, up until the late 90's. And then in the worst season the Bruins had with him there for and I think it was the first non-playoff year that he was there for (96-97) lo and behold, he has a -11 for the season. And from then on, he had either low plus numbers or was a minus. Then when he goes to Colorado for a full year, he resurrects this plus/minus to a +25 at 40 years old! And on arguably the best team he had been on in years, if not his entire career.
Wayne Gretzky? Not a defenseman, but he's fourth all time in plus minus. He was a minus player in 7 of the last 8 years of his career. Is it because he was old and wasn't scoring 100+ points and was not as good anymore? Maybe a little bit, but notice how when he left Edmonton and all his buddies, his plus/minus started to take a turn in the other direction. just take a look at it. He even scored 121 points in 91-92 and was still a -12. He scored 130 points in 93-94 and was still a -25! Is this because Gretzky stopped playing defense all of the sudden?