Quote:
Originally Posted by united
You obviously like stats and frequently post them to the betterment of the forum, but I have to be honest I have noticed how often you seemingly go to bat specifically for Monahan (and against Gaudreau). What am I missing?
9 Flames forwards have played at least 100 minutes at 5-on-5 this season. Per Natural Stattrick, here is where Monahan ranks among the 9 - and very important to note these are all naturally highly correlated I am not saying he sucks in 35 different categories just there is no outlier to give benefit of the doubt.
xGF60: 7th
xGA60: 8th
xGF%: 8th
CF60: 7th
CA60: 8th
CF%: 8th
xGF60 (rel): 7th
xGA60 (rel): 8th
xGF% (rel): 8th
CF60 (rel): 7th
CA60 (rel): 8th
CF% (rel): 8th
Now add all that to zone usage context (which is typically over-rated but is not meaningless) of which no forward on the Flames has been deployed in a more offensive zone-heavy manner than Monahan, plus as we know a commensurate decrease in strength of competition with Lindholm's new role.
I was excited that 13 and 23 were going to finally going to be deployed in a manner that would enhance their strengths 5v5 given they are both horrendous in their own end, but when viewing their play in that context, I would say they have been mediocre so far. Two players of their caliber, with those minutes, shouldn't be sub-55% xG let alone treading closer to break-even. They obviously add a ton of value with the man advantage, but imagine if they were 55% or better at even and contributed on the PP. If they can get to 55+ with selective minutes or just break even matching other teams' top lines that would be huge for the Flames, but not looking good on either which is disappointing as we need them to pull their weight.
Now, I wrote all that while feeling partially ashamed as the importance of adequate sample size can't be understated and at about 130 minutes, he still has 70 minutes to play at minimum before we can start making concrete conclusions...but the early returns have been somewhat discouraging. Again, not meaning offence or targeting. I badly want them to put it together so the Flames go on a deep run.
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I feel like I’ve actually praised both Gaudreau and Monahan for their games this season, don’t really recall singling out Gaudreau for poor play at all. I’ve had really high praise for Lindholms play at Center as well. I called out Backlund & Tkachuk but there were time where they were legitimately bad in those games against Winnipeg and were serving up Pizzas.
I am not to worried about the team rank because Backlund and Lindholm lines have been in the positive on the Corsi/xGF ledger as well.
Overall Gaudreau and Monahan have never been high possession drivers, that’s just not going to be their thing. So for them being at 50% Corsi is not bad, and being at 52% xGF% while isn’t great is still a lot better than they were at last year (48%).
And to me the big thing for both Gaudreau and Monahan has been effort. They still aren’t great defensively but they are trying a lot harder in their own end, which is a start, and They’ve been able to cut down on the quality of chances against in their own zone.
And while part of it is a bit of a PDO bender they’ve been on on the ice for 6 GF and only 3 GA at 5v5 this season as a pair, I’ll take that any day of the week.
With Covid this offseason and this season it seems pretty clear that moving either of these guys isn’t on the cards, so might as well be positive with the improvements they have made and that they are playing better.