I wonder what the percentage or number of high quality scoring chances are for the Flames relative to other teams.
Maybe i'm just looking at it through rose colored glasses, but I see the Flames in a lot of prime scoring opportunities, and if you get more of those, it shouldn't be surprising that you have a higher shooting percentage.
What good is cycling the puck for a minute in the opposition zone if all you get are low percentage chances?
It just seems like the Flames attack more and score more on the rush, especially with the defense joining the attack. As opposed to the usual cycle game that most teams employ.
It'd be great if someone with time can track all the Flames scoring opportunities and see where they are relative to other teams.
It seems Monahan and Hudler and Gaudreau always score from just inside the slot and if you are shooting from there, you have a better chance of scoring than from the boards.
Could it be that this team is just simply more talented than people think and that the specific system that they employ (less cycling, more creating prime scoring opportunities) generates lower advanced stats metrics?
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Calgary Flames, PLEASE GO TO THE NET! AND SHOOT THE PUCK! GENERATING OFFENSE IS NOT DIFFICULT! SKATE HARD, SHOOT HARD, CRASH THE NET HARD!
I'm curious to see some people's reasoning as to why these type of percentages are sustainable.
Because Corsi and PDO and regression to the mean of shooting percentage all have one underlying asumption. And that is that all shot attempts have an equal chance of going in.
Now in statistical analysis some eveidence to back up the above has been found that on average that team shot selection has no affect. The underlying assumption for this is that distance from the net is used in determining the quality of the chance.
So the statistical tools to evaluate shot quality are in their infancy. The most interesting one I find is the concept of the royal road which is a line down the center of the the ice. It was found that 75% of the goals scored in the NHL result from plays which the player or the pass crosses the center of the ice.
Annecdoatlly Calgary and especially the Gaudreau, Monahan, Hudler line have a high number of plays which would cross the royal road rather than lower percentage chances. I would like to see some rigourous statistical analysis using the flames data to see if this could be a reason twhy the flames score goals and win in spite of poor Corsi.
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Two interesting links on shot quality, Corsi and Shooting %
The money graf from the second link, to my eyes:
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Some other really interesting work being done recently is by former NHL goalie Stephen Valiquette where he is identifying higher quality shots as being those that (for the most part) result from plays with significant lateral movement. In particular he defines the “Royal Road” as the line down the middle of the ice from one end to the other and when the puck moves laterally across this line either by a pass or being skated across immediately before a shot is taken the shot is more likely to result in a goal. To me this makes a lot of sense and I think is really where the next great leap in shot quality analysis will come from. Speed of the play (i.e. rush shots) and lateral puck movement are likely the largest contributing factors to shot quality.
Lateral movement, I believe, is the key. The Flames this year have excelled both at generating chances on the rush and at moving the puck quickly in the attacking zone.
As I've mentioned before, it's harder to defend against a five-man attack than a three-man attack. The Flames have (at the moment) four of the top 50 scoring defencemen in the NHL, and some combination of those four players has generally been on the ice for close to 50 minutes per game. When that happens, every skater represents an offensive threat that must be countered, and the defending team cannot cheat by keying on the most dangerous players and ignoring the plugs. The team takes advantage of this by frequent passes and rapid lateral puck movement, which (says Valiquette) contributes strongly to shot quality.
In the circumstances, it should not surprise anyone that they have a higher than average shooting percentage. Add to that the fact that they have a surprising amount of offensive talent now, thanks to the emergence of Monahan and Gaudreau.
I'd love to see that ‘next great leap in shot quality analysis’. And I think this year's Flames will be a textbook case, and the source of some excellent data that will help that next great leap to be made.
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It's interesting because the two takeaways are the two things the Flames have been very successful at doing this year.
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Good possession teams play in the offensive zone more frequently and the defensive zone less frequently. This could result in a shot type bias away from higher quality “rush shots” and towards lower quality zone play shots.
It could be related to style of play and passing. It has been shown that shots after passes are more likely to result in goals and lateral movement, especially passes, across the “Royal Road” down the center of the ice also result in more goals. My theory is passing, and in particular passing through the center of the ice, while more likely to result in a goal is also more likely to result in a turnover. Thus teams that take riskier, longer passes especially lateral passes are more likely to see plays result in a goal if successful or a turnover (and no shot from that possession) if unsuccessful. Conversely a more conservative passing team with fewer cross-ice passes through traffic would have fewer possession not result in shots but in turn not get rewarded with high quality shots that result from those risky cross-ice plays.
The Flames have been a speedy team that generates off the rush, and are a team that tends to make a lot of those cross seam/cross ice passes that are a little more high risk/high reward.
I do feel like there are times where this team is trading off taking a shot, in order to make the extra cross ice pass for a better scoring chance.
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Lateral movement, I believe, is the key. The Flames this year have excelled both at generating chances on the rush and at moving the puck quickly in the attacking zone.
As I've mentioned before, it's harder to defend against a five-man attack than a three-man attack. The Flames have (at the moment) four of the top 50 scoring defencemen in the NHL, and some combination of those four players has generally been on the ice for close to 50 minutes per game. When that happens, every skater represents an offensive threat that must be countered, and the defending team cannot cheat by keying on the most dangerous players and ignoring the plugs. The team takes advantage of this by frequent passes and rapid lateral puck movement, which (says Valiquette) contributes strongly to shot quality.
In the circumstances, it should not surprise anyone that they have a higher than average shooting percentage. Add to that the fact that they have a surprising amount of offensive talent now, thanks to the emergence of Monahan and Gaudreau.
I'd love to see that ‘next great leap in shot quality analysis’. And I think this year's Flames will be a textbook case, and the source of some excellent data that will help that next great leap to be made.
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Originally Posted by SuperMatt18
It's interesting because the two takeaways are the two things the Flames have been very successful at doing this year.[/LIST]The Flames have been a speedy team that generates off the rush, and are a team that tends to make a lot of those cross seam/cross ice passes that are a little more high risk/high reward.
I do feel like there are times where this team is trading off taking a shot, in order to make the extra cross ice pass for a better scoring chance.
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I'm curious about just how mandatory training is during the year. How much leeway do these guys have to skip a workout from day to day or week to week? Even doing something required doesn't say everything about how much effort or how effective a workout might be, but it does make me wonder.
Are there a lot of professional athletes who just don't work very hard in the gym and coast on skill? Probably Kessel from the way that he looks.
As others have pointed out, for years I thought the Flames actually were considered to be supremely conditioned, but maybe I'm just thinking about Iggy relative to other players on the team.
Flames are a classic counter-attacking team. Against stronger possession teams they soak up all that possession in their own zone, defend well and block shots, cause turnovers which often result in odd-man rushes and subsequently goals.
The major flaw of Corsi and Fenwick is that they do not account for a team to be set up like this. This is just one of the reasons I'd love Hartley to win the Jack Adams. It's a huge F U to the Advanced Stats movement.
Wow, that takes me back. I haven't played Strat-O-Matic since the 80s!
We had a little CP league going a few years ago but it was hard to keep a table-top game going. Maybe the computer version would work better with on-line games.
fitness 
