How Important is the Plus/Minus Rating?

While watching a game, one of the statistics that they like to profile is the plus/minus rating of the players. The way that it works is that a player gets a plus if a goal is scored while they are on the ice, and conversely they receive a minus if a goal is scored against them while they are out there. While every player would want to have a great plus minus rating, there's several factors that come into play. First off, you have to be on a pretty decent team to have any realistic chance of having a great plus/minus rating. For instance, Brendan Witt of the New York Islanders has one of the worse ratings of -32. Is this terrible stat because he plays on one of the worst teams in the NHL or the fact that he's not having a very good year? Probably both, but I'm quite certain that if Witt played for the Red Wings or the Bruins his numbers would look a lot different. For instance, the only player on the Bruins who has a minus rating of more than -1 is Mark Recchi and that's because Recchi played most of the year for the lowly Tampa Bay Lighting, and was just recently traded to the Bruins.

While all players would love to have a great plus/minus rating I think it's obvious that it has as much to do with who you play for, and while the number is interesting to chart, doesn't necessarily reflect the true value of a player.