Quote:
Originally Posted by GullFoss
Doesn't this make the next logical question, "Why can't so many players on this team finish?"
1) Rule out garbage players. The players had higher shootinger percentages in the past, so the underlying reason likely isn't having too many players that are sub-par shooters. Looking at the age of players, it's not likely explainable by "post-apex" decline either
2) Rule out bad luck. First, define bad luck as randomness that goes against your favor. Next, assuming the decline in shooting percentage is random (ie bad luck) requires us to assume that its not connected to the same factor affecting multiple players the same way. That in turn requires a "no correlation of bad shooting percentages among players" assumption. What is the likelihood that independently of each other, all these players are having bad years for shooting percentage? It's very very low. Ergo, its unlikely to bad luck and likely to be a common driver that's causing their shooting percentage to be low.
3) Try and think of other variables that can explain the problem. What other variables could cause a collection of good player's on a team to all have a reduced shooting percentage. Note here that is HAS TO BE A COLLECTIVE FACTOR because this is the only way to explain the positive correlation between the weak shooting percentage. It can be a collective mental problem (ie player's holding their sticks to tight) - but this doesn't explain why top tier players had good years. It might also be a collective strategy problem - the system doesn't generate enough offensive.
4) It's likely a system issue that does not allow for the generation of enough offense for lower quality players. Given the ability of top talent players to play well in this system (Hamilton, Gio, Monahan, Johnny) and weaker players play progressively worse in the system (the lower the talent level of the player, the worse of a season the player had), one can come to the hypothesis that the system itself does lend itself to generating sufficient offense to win hockey games.
5) Why does the system not generate sufficient offense for players with lower quality offensive skill?
This is where the eye test comes in because advance stats can't get into this minutia. In my view the eye test shows the flames take too long too transition the puck 5-on-5, which allows the opposition defense to set up defensively. They also play too defensively without the puck, which reduces the number of odd man rushes they generate.
And the lower quality the offensive prowess of the flame's player, the more difficulty he has generating offense against a team that is fully ready for his attack. IE - lower quality players have trouble scoring 5-on-5 because they have less talent and this is overcome by generating odd man attacks (2-on-1s, 3-on-2s, etc) of which the flames generated much fewer than the other team!
At a high level, the individual player stats fit the narrative. It might explain why the flames got decent third line production from Janko or Bennett (relative to the rest of the bottom six), two of the more offensively talented third line players. It also explains the continued drop-off for Brouwer and the fact that Lazar couldn't do anything offensive all season. Or why any of the call ups from the AHL had no offensive success. Or why Frolik's and Backlund - who are better known for their responsible two way play - had disappointing offensive seasons, even more-so once you consider the large progression taken by Tkachuk in the off-season.
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This has happened to a few teams every year good and bad.
Some of the time it's a sign of a eroding core, sometimes a coach, sometimes it is luck.
I'm not advocating luck as the principal answer, they need to dig deep on that and come up with their own conclusions, but I'm also not going 100% to systems either (coach) as there are too many supporting numbers that suggest they're getting more than enough chances to finish.
And once again eye test is subjective.
The Flames to me were out playing and out chancing teams, but that's just me. Recently however they seem to be giving up more, and creating less ... all the while throwing everything on net.
The numbers matched what I was seeing in both circumstances.