Hockey New's Costello weighs in on Flames

[Bingo]

says heart and Hartley instead of smoke and mirrors ...

Hockey News

What’s more impressive about Hartley’s evolution is the way he designed Calgary’s game plan this season. He identified the team’s biggest strength – skill, speed and smarts on the blueline – and focused the attack around a charging defense corps.

It should be pointed out, however, the Flames had the seventh-best record in the NHL last season (19 wins in 31 games) after the Jan. 18 line brawl with Vancouver. Combine that with 17 wins in 28 games this season and that’s a 100-point pace over almost 60 games. That’s getting to be a pretty big sample size.

[kermitology]

Another reason for Calgary’s surprising start is above average goaltending from Jonas Hiller and Karri Ramo. Goaltending had been a downfall for the Flames the past couple of seasons when Miikka Kiprusoff’s game went south and the likes of Joey MacDonald and Reto Berra struggled.

I find this interesting as the goaltending stat line has evened out. They're getting good goaltending. .917 and .913 save percentages for Ramo and Hiller respectively, 2.37 and 2.49 GAA respectively as well. That speaks of good, but not necessarily outstanding goaltending.

The offence is leading the charge at the moment for the Flames it seems, lucky as they might be..

[Coach]

^^ He did say "above-average", not outstanding.

[kermitology]

Originally Posted by MattyC

^^ He did say "above-average", not outstanding.

Does this qualify as above average though? This is basically average in the NHL, meaning good IMO.

[Coach]

I would say it's above average. I'm not going to do the math but I would say passable/average NHL goaltending is between .900 and .910. .910-.920 is good/above average and anything over .920 is pretty great to elite.

I think average GAA is about 3. The Flames are well below that, but that is likely more attributed to the team defensive play moreso than the goalies.

I would agree they've been pretty standard since a great start. But what's between great and average, which is where they are now? Above average.

[GioforPM]

Ramo's games after the shutouts were quite good but not spectacular. No real softies, a few really good saves, and a few goals that beat him. Same with Hiller's last few (except I'd say there were two softies I can recall).

[kermitology]

Originally Posted by MattyC

I would say it's above average. I'm not going to do the math but I would say passable/average NHL goaltending is between .900 and .910. .910-.920 is good/above average and anything over .920 is pretty great to elite.

I think average GAA is about 3. The Flames are well below that, but that is likely more attributed to the team defensive play moreso than the goalies.

I would agree they've been pretty standard since a great start. But what's between great and average, which is where they are now? Above average.

Disagree. Here's ESPN's qualified stats page for GAA rankings.

Ramo is 13th, Hiller is 16th. That's average IMO.
Save percentages have them at (tied) for 13th and (tied) for 24th respectively.

That's average as well.

Interestingly the Canucks are getting pretty meh goaltending from Miller. He's in the bottom third in both GAA and save percentage

http://espn.go.com/nhl/statistics/pl...5/seasontype/2

[Jay Random]

Average scoring in the NHL so far this season is 2.74 GF/G, while the average team GAA is 2.57. The average save percentage for goalies is .913. (Source: hockey-reference.com.)

Hiller’s save percentage is exactly average, and Ramo is as close to average as no matter. It’s fair to say that the Flames are well above average offensively and average defensively.

[dash_pinched]

Much more positive stuff from Costello than Ryan Lambert:

So what, according to Calgary fans and media types, do the Flames do that their forebears do not, which would drive shooting percentage to such significant-outlier levels?

Two things, actually:

1) Have two of the four or five best defensemen in hockey this year, and 2) Work hard.

The second of these points is of course ludicrous, because low-talent teams obviously have to work harder to keep games close, but it's not as though high-talent teams do not work hard. There's a comparison to be drawn, I think, between what the Flames have done to this point and what a jockey with a crap horse might do right out of the gate if he were trying to impress people: Whip the hell out of that old nag, get it out to an early lead, and even if (when) you fade down the stretch, well, at least you led for a while. As with the Avs and Stars and Wild and Leafs and Avs again, these are all clubs that pretty much collapsed as the season wore on, and it wouldn't be too shocking to see a late run in which the Flames win four out of 20. At least they started out hot, though.

As to the thing about the defensemen, I've said over and over again the Mark Giordano and TJ Brodie should be top-3 Norris vote-getters this year. No one else is in their ballpark in terms of generating offense (because the Flames have no one else to do it) and playing top competition on a nightly basis and significantly outperforming their garbage teammates, of which they have many.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-pu...145427879.html

[Badgers Nose]

He gets points for looking at calendar year stats. The other experts are kind of dumb and missed that. The post Iggy era is about sharing the load and not having a couple of guys carry it.

The very point of a good team culture is that a team is greater than the sum of its parts -it's not Iggy and Kipper's fault they were the only legit stars on the Flames for so long.

This year's version of the team is full of guys making names for themselves. In the future the spot light will be shared more evenly. It just so happens a lot of these guys are emerging at the same time.

[Street Pharmacist]

Lambert has been beating the clickbait horse for months. He's had probably 7 or 8 over the top negative stories about the flames over the past few months. It's worked so far for him as they certainly catch attention. Little of substance though

[Codes]

I made the mistake of reading Lambert's story this morning. It was pretty ignorant.

[Brewmaster]

Originally Posted by dash_pinched

Much more positive stuff from Costello than Ryan Lambert:

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-pu...145427879.html

I actually thought this article was worth a laugh. Lambert sounds angry that the Flames are having success, like he takes it personal that his predictions of this team haven't been close to accurate yet. Here are a few of his best lines:

the thing you have to say to the Flames' credit is that even if they're awful — and they are, make no mistake — they're at least piling up enough points that the playoffs are getting to be a roughly 50-50 proposition even if the bottom completely drops out of their season, starting tomorrow.

So which one is it, are we awful or are we piling up points?

Anyone who thinks this team is truly capable of anything beyond a first-round flameout is deluding themselves; a best-of-seven series against a top team in the West would end in a bloodbath.

Even a first round 'flameout' would be a big step forward for this young club, and one that would certainly indicate the Flames are heading in the right direction. Not sure how anyone can spin that into a negative, but Lambert tries.

Treliving's best option was to never sign a decent goaltender this season, and tank as hard as possible just like some other teams in this league I could mention but won't.

If I didn't know better, I would think this was written by Kevin "I think I know a little bit about winning" Lowe.

[burn_this_city]

Its from Ryan L stands for losing Lambert.

[Bingo]

You guys missed the best one ...

Calling those that disagree with him fanboys. That's the classic discounting of dissenting views line.

[CaptainCrunch]

Man everytime I read Lambert and its rarely because the guy comes across as a grade a p$$$k. I'm reminder of the writing styles of a very angry donkey hammering on his keyboard with frustration because he has no thumbs while braying "My opinion counts" over and over again.

What a maroon.

[darthma]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Man everytime I read Lambert and its rarely because the guy comes across as a grade a p$$$k. I'm reminder of the writing styles of a very angry donkey hammering on his keyboard with frustration because he has no thumbs while braying "My opinion counts" over and over again.

What a maroon.

Your sig is very fitting.

[Locke]

Lambert? Ryan Lambert? As in this Ryan Lambert?

At least the Oilers had the decency to burn it to the ground as deliberately as possible. And at least they're trending in the right direction.

http://############.com/2014/12/6/so...e-a-flames-fan

That dude?

He wouldnt know good hockey if Zdeno Chara planted a 100+MPH slapper into his nuts.

[jayswin]

What's up with Metronome from CP? He's Kent Wilson and writes for Flamesnation, right? How does he feel about Ryan Lambert totally ruining that website with his clickbait goofyness? Gotta be annoyed, I'd imagine?

Edit: Or am I thinking of two different places? Everytime someone links to Lambert's stuff the link is starred out so I don't know where to actually go.

[Sylvanfan]

The thing to me though is that the Flames goaltending this year has been better than it was in the past three seasons. More importantly, it's been pretty consistent. If your goaltending is wildly variable, than I think it will carry over to your results. Reto Berra could be all world one night, and awful the next. Not many games where he was above average.

For the most part the Flames goaltending doesn't seem to vary as much from one night to the next as it has in past years, and I think that is a big reason why they haven't endured any losing streaks of more than a game yet.