Quote:
Originally Posted by GranteedEV
Have they?
Hartley's last year here, with Kris Russell (our worst possession player) and no Matthew Tkachuk (our best possession player) we were a 47.97% xGF% team.
Gulutzan's first year here, with Tkachuk (our best possession player) and no Kris Russell (our worst possession player) we were a 49.33% xGF% team.
So that's a shade under 1% improvement with a better, more complete roster and better goaltending.
Both are sub-50% teams in terms of expected goals over a full season. One guy had Matthew Tkachuk, the other guy had Kris Russell.
He's made us play a more responsible style with centers supporting down low, but don't confuse that with us playing "better" at 5-on-5. The only players to see significant gains in their possession numbers have really just been our worst players - guys like Matt Stajan or Deryk Engelland.
You look at Gaudreau and he had roughly the same possession numbers under Hartley (49.08% CF / 49.71% xGF%) he did under Gulutzan (50.21% CF / 49.96% xGF%) except he's been a turnover machine under Gulutzan because he has no green light to fly the zone and hit quickly. Gaudreau, Bennett, Brodie, and Giordano all stopped using their full skillsets under Gulutzan.
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Pretty sure Hartley's 97 point season was more points than we had last year.
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Hartley's 97-point season was one of the luckiest team seasons in recent memory.
Also, you
must be joking in your point about the Flames losing Russell and gaining Tkachuk. I mean, sure, that did happen. But you're discounting other transactions that occurred, like the Flames acquiring one of their worst possession players in Brouwer. You can't just isolate a couple transactions and apply them to the whole team.