Quote:
Originally Posted by Bingo
I think shooting percentage in Hartley's system would always be higher, as he had them collapse down low and then counter attack after getting worked in their own zone.
But do you want way less chances and a higher shooting percentage, or way more chances and a lesser shooting percentage?
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I am not so sure that they got 'worked in their own zone'. I think the collapsing and shot blocking worked for THAT team based on the make-up of the roster.
Gulutzan has a MUCH improved defence and improved forward core that is more competent defensively (team is not as young). I was really surprised that the Flames are actually surrending more shots on net now than they did in Hartley's last year where the team took a gigantic nosedive.
One thing that I think is kind of interesting is looking through many of those posts during the 2014-15 season and reading through the rationales as to why the 'unsustainability' that the pundits were predicting for the Flames were in fact sustainable. I remember there was some really good conversation that year with regards to advanced stats. I don't think that the metrics necessarily predicted that Hartley's Flames were going to nosedive like they did that final year, as I think it was predominantly based on the poor play of the goaltenders at the time.
Now we have the exact opposite - two full seasons of "The metrics say that the Flames should be better than they are". Solid goaltending (until very recently), so I don't think we can throw that out as the excuse.
This actually reminds me of Darryl Sutter's biggest mistake as a GM. He had Mike Keenan who allowed to many goals against, and to correct it, he made a series of moves that saw some scoring move out and saw defence move in. That was fine on its' own, but then to confound the situation, he got a defensive minded coach. Flames had a heck of a time scoring in that defensive system with the personnel they had. I have no idea if any metrics were around during those times, but my guess is that Keenan would mirror Hartley and Sutter would mirror Gulutzan (well, probably not that poorly as Sutter, but swaying towards those numbers I bet).
It just feels like the pendulum swinging too far one way again, but defensively the Flames haven't been nearly good enough for a long while again (and I think they started becoming an elite defensive team for a stretch this season, though I do think that Smith really helped with that aspect).
The Hartley Flames were a tire-fire in their own end only when it comes to advanced metrics. Teams would get a bunch of shots away and control a lot of zone time, but most of those shots were not dangerous and the lanes were always blocked-off. It is something that looks totally ugly on the metrics, but in practice, works. It is too bad that there isn't more categories of shots so that we could really compare the quality that was generated both for and against the last two (or 4) coaches.