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Old 12-22-2019, 02:23 PM   #1
powderjunkie
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Default Johnny and the Flames "Pacific Problem"

We all know the Flames have been a Jekyll and Hyde team for several years now, and there are innumerable guesses to the reason(s). I stumbled across an interesting data point that lends a lot of support to some of these ideas, though the conclusions to be drawn are certainly up for debate. The Flames, and especially Johnny Gaudreau are at their worst against Pacific Division opponents.



DOD (degree of difficulty) is essentially just the strength of the division. Higher number = stronger (more info at bottom of post).

Current season is especially manic (and incomplete samples), so I'd hesitate to draw much conclusion from it, but over the course of the last 3 seasons there is a clear trend, despite the Pacific being a consistently 'weak' division.

I imagine there are lots of other stats that can correlate relative success rates between the Flames and Johnny, but the relationship seems especially evident here. Unsurprisingly, Monahan follows a similar trend, but nowhere near as dramatically as his usual linemate. Gio and Backlund seem to perform slightly below their averages against the PAC, but with much less deviation (as one might expect being less directly linked with Gaudreau).


To me, this supports the idea that 'the book is out on how to beat Johnny and the Flames', with the notion that coaching staff would focus most energy on their divisional foes (most frequent opponents, biggest impact on standings, and most likely playoff opponents). One would expect that Central Division teams should be able to achieve the same success against us...I don't have a particular explanation...perhaps they have simply focused more attention on California teams?

I think there are lots of other possible inferences. One that comes to mind is that if/when Johnny becomes aware of this statistical distinction, does it make him less likely to re-sign (ie. in his mind he could be a consistent 1.2 ppg player playing in another division)? Without turning this solely into a trade Johnny thread, I think this is definitely an interesting data point that supports seriously exploring the idea.

Another inference might be that this does not bode well for making the playoffs (currently trending to CEN teams taking both wildcard spots), or success in the playoffs generally (especially if the 'easy to scout and strategize against' notion is true).

Lastly, from a quick glance, struggling within division does not seem to apply at all to any recent cup winners, or elite teams (most seem especially dominant within division). You might find a bit of it for the Jets (and pre-2018 Blues), but to nowhere near the same degree as Calgary.

DOD Sourced from here: https://www.usatoday.com/sports/nhl/...n/2019/rating/ - it's based on a 4.0 reference point - I divided it by 4 because I was thinking about displaying all this info on a single graphic, but got lazy. I used the 'simple mean' (because we play each team with equal frequency *almost*) - the exact numbers aren't particularly important, I was just looking for a quick/dirty expression of comparative divisional strength. All of the team and play pt data is raw (ie. no attempt to 'correct' anything)

Hockey-Reference - 'Splits' is where to find player stats by division (not broken per game as far as I could see though)
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