The Flames avenge a decade of futility by administering a severe and richly deserved thrashing to the Pens. Several scoring slumps end and, in retrospect, we will see our real season having begun with this game.
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I don't understand why the Flames never try Backlund at LW.
He is struggling at FOs, and Bennett's average isn't any worse.
Without the center-man's responsibilities, Backlund may be able to open up his offense.
Probably because he's (usually) a very very good defensive Center. Team defence right now is pure garbage but he's still the best defensive forward and with 2 points and the GWG last game, hopefully this opens the offensive floodgates for him a bit.
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"Illusions Michael, tricks are something a wh*re does for money ....... or cocaine"
Funny thing is, the more I look deeper into the Flames struggles, the more confused I am.
To the eye test and my own logic, I can't see three goalies equally struggling as bad as they seem to be right now. When that happens there's likely a non goaltending reason. Seems more like brain farts and defensive breakdowns are the culprit, along with goaltending. It's highly improbable that a Goalie with a higher than average career save % posts numbers that are far below replacement on his own (sample size alert), nevermind three goalies doing that at the same time. The chances are slim that all three goalies forgot how to play goal over a 4 month span.
The stats tell a much different story. War on Ice keeps track of High Danger Scoring Chances and those are shots from areas that have a much higher chance of going in as well as shots off the rush which also go on at a much higher rate. The Flames actually have a positive differential, which means they've had more of these chances than their opponents have. Even regular scoring chances have the Flames up over their opponents. They're in the top half of the league in both chances for and against. Before someone talks about "score adjusted" numbers it doesn't matter in this context as we're discussing past goal differential, not predicting the future. There's no statistical explanation with currently available numbers for the historically bad GAA except historically bad goaltending.
This leads me to believe it's a combination of things: horrible luck, noise in the numbers, small sample size and low confidence. The good news is that means this historically bad stretch should end and the Flames should play better. The downside is there's nothing to suggest they'll play well enough to dig out of this hole and there's a very little chance they'll make the post season this year. It looks like the Flames are getting results before where their play suggests they should be, but they'd have to play waaaaay better to go on the type of run they'll need to make it
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