[heep223]

Please, please don't turn this thread into another advanced stats debate. I really just wanted to share this Grantland article because it's one of the best I've read about this year's Flames.

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/ho...dvanced-stats/

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: There’s an NHL hockey team that’s not all that good according to the numbers, yet somehow keeps winning. The stats guys say that it can’t possibly continue, that we’ve seen this movie before, and that history tells us the ending won’t be happy. But others aren’t so sure, wondering if maybe, just maybe, this is the team that’s figured out a way to beat the system. Unless you’re brand new to hockey, you have indeed heard this one before, and you’ve heard it more than once. Four years ago, it was the Dallas Stars. The year after that, it was the Minnesota Wild. Last year we had two teams, the Colorado Avalanche and the Toronto Maple Leafs, offering different interpretations of the same role. All of them seemed to be defying the numbers. All of them eventually crashed back down to earth.

All of which brings us to this year’s Flames, one of the worst possession teams in the league. They sit 28th in score-adjusted Corsi, and the only other team in the bottom third that’s even close to a playoff spot is doing it on the back of a goalie who’s probably going to win MVP. And it’s not just the fancy stats that point to the Flames being a bad team. On paper, they don’t have a ton of talent, and their best player and captain, defenseman Mark Giordano, was lost for the season last month.

And yet, numbers be damned, Calgary just keeps winning. A team that everyone expected to contend for last place overall is instead right in the thick of the playoff race in a very tough Western Conference. After one month, it was a cute early-season plotline. After two, it was getting into Cinderella territory, a fun little story that nobody really took seriously. You couldn’t even say the Flames were counted out, because that would imply that anyone had ever counted them in.

But a bigger difference is the way the Flames are winning. When other teams have defied the numbers, we’ve been assured it was because they’d found a way to beat the system. Possession stats treat all shots as equal, so in theory, a team with the right talent could play a style that relied on shot quality to buck the percentages. Did you ever think of that, stat guys?

For the most part, that’s not the angle that the Flames and their fans are taking. Instead, they’re convinced that Calgary is winning hockey games the old-fashioned way: with grit, character, hard work, and team toughness. The Flames may not have the talent, but they win anyway, because most nights they just plain want it more than the other guys do.

It’s all clichéd enough to make a cynical hockey fan’s eyes roll into the back of his or her head. Except that, well, it’s not completely untrue.
The Flames face more talented teams and bully them out of the building. Defenseman Kris Russell just set an NHL record for blocked shots in a game. Giordano is still working harder than many of the league’s top stars, even though he can’t play. New guys you’ve never heard of with funny names show up, then turn into Peter Forsberg. And game after game, the Flames fall behind early, only to claw their way back into competition. It’s become a running joke among fans by now — Oh, look, Calgary’s down 3-0, time to tune in for the big comeback.

And I’m sorry, but it’s all just a crazy amount of fun. I know I’m not supposed to say that — unbiased reporting and all that — but if you’re not enjoying the hell out of the 2014-15 Calgary Flames, then I just don’t know what to tell you. Whether the numbers like it or not, the Flames have become the league’s most likable team. And that’s where two more key differences come into play.

First, all of those other teams that flew too high and then crashed back to earth were, in their own way, easy to root against. There was a sense of arrogance to their stories, as if they were a little too eager to congratulate themselves for somehow finding a cheat code nobody else knew about. Heck, based on some of his public comments, Toronto GM Dave Nonis did everything short of twirl his mustache while tying stats guys to train tracks. As long as you weren’t a die-hard fan of one of these particular teams, watching them fall on their faces was a certain kind of fun.

But how do you root against this Flames team? You can’t. You shouldn’t. You’re a bad person if you do.

But that sort of victory lap can’t happen with this year’s Flames. They’ve already overachieved to such an extent that there’s no conceivable collapse that could result in their season being labeled a failure. If they make the playoffs and get smoked in the first round, they’ve still won. If they stay in the race but narrowly miss out on a postseason spot, they’ve still won. Even if the team literally lost every game left on the schedule, you’d still have to look back on their season as a triumph. The Calgary Flames have already won. They’re the first team in the analytics era to defy the numbers for a full season and still make it through to the other side.