Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay Random
Two facts leap out from this team's numbers: They are above average at generating scoring chances, and one of the worst teams in the league at converting those chances into goals. That's on the players – and partly a matter of luck, as several of those players have been shooting far worse than their career percentages.
Though I suppose one could claim that a coach has the power to make professional hockey players worse at shooting the puck. .
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Or perhaps those chances are far inferior to the chances they got when they had higher shooting percentages. I don't think it's a coincidence that everyone except Monahan/Hamilton, two guys who are made for a slower tempo game by shooting through goaltenders has seen their SH% decline from 2016 (So Gaudreau, Bennett, Backlund, Giordano, Frolik ). The only guy who has seen his SH% actually improve is Ferland, and he was a guy who wasn't especially established back then and was essentially a prospect in his first year NHL. We get more "chances" now, but they are in traffic with fewer backdoor seams and defensemen like Brodie and Giordano don't create secondary confusion like they used to for a reason.
Not everything absolves the players of their play, but the clear offensive decline didn't happen from 2015 to 2016 or from 2017 to 2018. It happened from 2016 to 2017, which lines up with the coaching and systems change. And while there was some tangible evidence of improved defensive play in 2016-17, that has not actually been the case this year, as the 2017-18 Flames have almost identical non-goaltending defensive statistics to the 2015-16 Flames, except without the uptempo offense. The 2015-16 Flames were a bottom ten defensive team and a top ten goal scoring team with league worst goaltending. The 2017-18 Flames are a bottom ten defensive team and a bottom ten goal scoring team, but we've gotten outstanding road goaltending masking most of the issues.