Quote:
Originally Posted by ricardodw
1) Points are not goals.
2) Lines are not made of by sorting and parsing the scoring rate.
It would be far more valid that you would make up lines by ES TOI
Or even better the time that the line actual plays together. link
Try and find another team that is so dependent on one line. There is no other team that is even close in the 25% of ice time allocated to 3 players as a unit.
The Flames have 1 line and whatever line Mangiapane is playing is the second line however limited his line-mates are.
It is not a big leap to look at the Flames from the opposition POV and figure out that if you focus on stopping line # 1 that you have greatly improved your chances of winning.
11 games in the west and 2 wins in regulation. |
It is a bit concerning the wins vs the west as I'm sure the Flames have a history of playing very well against the East and struggling against the west and their own division.
I have a tough time agreeing this team relies on 1 line. Is the 25% ice for 1 line a result of playing them too many minutes or just that Sutter has rarely split up that line?
Lindholm, Gaudreau and Tkachuk have 32 goals including PP and SH goals. Mangiapane has 17 and rarely plays with any of those players. Add Lucic and Backlund to Mangiapane's total and they have a combined 28 goals. These are 3 players that never play first line or first PP and they are only trailing the big 3 by 4 goals?
Washington top 3 of AO, Kuznetsov and Wilson have 37 goals. Next leading goal scorers at forwards are Hathaway 7, Sheary 5, Oshie 4. Oshie plays on the PP with the big guys and 3 of his 4 goals are on the PP.
That's 1 example of a team that relies much more heavily on their first line than the Flames do. Oilers are in the same boat considering Draisaitl still plays big minutes 5 on 5 with McDavid and a ton of minutes on the PP together.
The Flames have been pretty balanced so far. Lack of goals for defense this year is more a concern than depth scoring. That and the Monahan line not contributing