Quote:
Originally Posted by Bingo
Score effects certainly play a role, but they don't change what I said ... the eye test matched the stats. The Flames controlled the last 35 minutes of the game.
And the Stars had 7 scoring chances the whole night in all situations, four of them five on five. So "nearly trickling through only to be foiled by posts" are included in the 7 and 4.
If you give up four five on five scoring chances on a night you win a huge majority of the time.
Score adjusted the Flames were 58.5% of shot attempts and 67% of the scoring chances.
The Flames played well.
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Score adjustments are imperfect. Reality is this: when the game was tied,or within one, the Stars were the better team:
After taking a 2-0 lead they could afford to stop taking risks and focus on playing a clean game without any awful turnovers that would put Bishop in a bad situation. They did what they had to to get a shutout. The Flames lacked a second wave of offense even with time winding down, and while they did get more agregate shots, they never established much cross-ice / backdoor / turnover / pinch based action. It was forwards cycling and shooting on Bishop. He didn't have an easy night but didn't have a difficult one. The best saves Bishop made were on Matt Stajan and TJ Brodie and those two may not have ten goals combined at the end of the year.
The eye test tells me the Flames were not awful but they were not particularily good while the Stars played well and got great goaltending as a bonus.