Quote:
Originally Posted by Calgary4LIfe
This is where things become confusing.
The Flames are still very much a young rebuilding team. I would expect them to be relatively low in scoring chances for and against. Just the nature of the beast until they get more depth and experience.
Also, you do hear often that a team doesn't play well in front of a goalie they don't trust. Flames seemed to vastly improve once Ramo got his groove back - and it wasn't like Ramo was playing some vezina quality minutes - he was merely decent, and the Flames played better in front of him. Remember when McBackup would start over Kipper? Team played a putrid game each and every time.
As for Wideman - the guy just came off a 50+ point season. That is really high last time I checked. He also did have the best shot from the point (better than Hamilton's), not to mention he stepped up huge last year and without him, the Flames don't make the playoffs. This year he started off poorly for whatever reason, and Hartley had to try and find a way to get him going.
Anybody know if the last segment of games before Wideman's suspension if the PP was doing better? For some reason, I recall the PP doing better right before his suspension. For his slow start, Wideman was still leading all Calgary defencemen with points in the first month (or two??), was he not?
The problem is that Wideman never got back on track. A good coach will give a guy like Wideman more rope in an effort to help him and get his game back. Seems he gave him too much rope at the end, but I don't fault Hartley for trying to get Wideman's game back.
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i take your points. and, by the way, i lurk more than i post and i find that your posts are consistently articulate and reasonable.
the flames haven't always been rebuilding under hartley, though. he was hired to bring a veteran squad to the playoffs and that year too calgary was among the bottom 10 in terms of shots and shot attempts generated. toronto was rebuilding this year, and yet their ability to generate shots and chances, despite having much more inferior team, far exceeded our ability to do so.
i agree that a team plays differently when it has no confidence in a goalie, but if we look at the stats for shot generation and possession, there is not real major difference between our team this year and last. if anything, we've improved our time of attack slightly.
i use wideman as one example. the other examples of hartleys stubbornness is the lack of change in our team transition and defensive strategy, using engelland as a top 3 dman after hamilton went down, and so on. our pp improved after wideman got suspended, and yet he was given top pp minutes as soon as he came back. the main thing i remember about wideman on the pp this year is his infallible ability to shoot the puck into shinguards. he had a great year last year, and he didn't this year, and it didn't seem to matter to hartley. i appreciate some measure of loyalty in a coach, but to return to what fails over and over again can cost and did cost the team.