[Article] What's wrong with Johnny Gaudreau? (not much)

[Calgary4LIfe]

While I do think there are legitimate reasons as to why Gaudreau started off slowly, I don't think his finger or his conditioning are to blame at this point in time in the season.

I am of the opinion that it is system-related at this point (given the lack of scoring from the other skilled players on the team).

Either the system doesn't allow enough creativity to make those high-percentage shots happen with enough frequency

or

The skilled players are still finding their niche so to speak between a very structured system and having their own creativity blend with the system.

I don't really believe much in 'luck' - at least not outside an occasional circumstance. I do really like how stifling the system is at times for the opponents, and how much zone time the Flames seem to enjoy for long periods of time, but I do question how many prime opportunities they are really getting out of it. I think at this point, you just keep going with it and see what happens. The Flames this year haven't played consistently enough (IMO) to prove that the system is good or bad for them.

I think this is an adjustment phase, and quite frankly a targeted-attack season on Johnny's hands that perhaps he hasn't ever had to deal with at this level (and what I mean is at this frequency).

[Flamenfame]

Simply teams has seen enough tape on him on how to shut him down. He needs to adjust his game , he also needs a big nasty winger for opposite side to get into the faces of players that whack and hack him to create more room for him.

[Classic_Sniper]

Personally, I don't think there's anything weong with Johnny Gaudreau right now. Sure he's not producing like we're use to seeing, but he's still creating a lot of chances. You only have to draw back from his previously impressive performances at the World Cup and All-Star game this season to remember that he's one of the premier talents in this league. He couldn't have posujust lost his ability overnight.

I have quite a few of last seasons games PVR'd and I've watched a few of his old shifts to see what might have changed this season that's causing him to struggle and from what I've seen, the Gaudreau-Monahan line were consistently creating plays off the rush more often last season.

For whatever reason, Gaudreau has been alone on the rush a lot this season which has lead to him trying to do everything by himself. This has lead to an increase in turnovers and frustration. If I was to venture a guess, it may be the new system or it might have to do with Monahan looking visibly slower this year, possibly because of the weight he added in the summer.

It also doesn't help that he's played with Alex Chiasson for the majority of the season and he's not exactly fleet of foot either nor does he own a skillset that compliments Gaudreau. I'm confident that if he found the right linemates, he would dominate like he did at the World Cup.

[Erick Estrada]

I personally don't see Gaudreau ever putting up the same type of numbers under Gulutzan. The Flames are essentially mirroring the Penguins under Mike Johnston. He came in with a defensive system and while the team did improve immensely it came at the expense of offense as the Penguins only scored 221 goals in an entire season under him which they are on pace to pass at about the 65 game mark this season under Sullivan. The Flames may not even hit 200 goals as a team this season which will be 30-40 goals less than what they were scoring under Hartley. It's hard to see things getting any better unless Gulutzan makes some offseason adjustments as it's clear is system as-is will not get this team where it needs to be.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Heavy Jack

Those who want to trade Johnny still... please give your head a shake. We didn't know completely what we had when we traded away guys like Hull, Savard, St.Louis... we know what we have in Johnny and would be foolish to trade him for a 'fair' hockey trade type return.

Ignoring the Hull reference since the short term gain during a Stanley Cup window made it worth it, you are assuming that trading Gaudreau would mean that we get nothing in return.

I am not advocating trading Gaudreau per se, but surely there is a return that would make it worth it. Would you trade him for Karlsson, Price or Tarasenko? Granted, I doubt those players are touchable and if Treliving offered Gaudreau for any of them, he probably gets hung up on.

But yeah, if the choice is Ruslan Zainullin (like for Savard) or buying him out (like with St. Louis), then don't do it.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

I personally don't see Gaudreau ever putting up the same type of numbers under Gulutzan. The Flames are essentially mirroring the Penguins under Mike Johnston. He came in with a defensive system and while the team did improve immensely it came at the expense of offense as the Penguins only scored 221 goals in an entire season under him which they are on pace to pass at about the 65 game mark this season under Sullivan. The Flames may not even hit 200 goals as a team this season which will be 30-40 goals less than what they were scoring under Hartley. It's hard to see things getting any better unless Gulutzan makes some offseason adjustments as it's clear is system as-is will not get this team where it needs to be.

Honestly I'm not sure it's the system, the team shooting percentage has just dropped a full percentage.

Last year:

Goals: 229
Shots: 2,398
Shooting %: 9.55%

This Year:

Goals: 150 (On Pace for 208)
Shots: 1747 (On Pace for 2,428)
Shooting %: 8.59%

If the team had the same shooting percentage as last year we would be on pace for 232 goals, actually just ahead of last year. The issue is Bennett, Monahan, and Gaudreau have all seen shooting percentages dip.

Even if we were still able to shoot at the NHL league average which is 9.1% we would be on pace for 221 goals, or only 8 goals fewer than last season.

Lets look at the three aforementioned players.

Gaudreau:
2015- 13.8% (2.7 Shots per game)
2016- 8.1% (2.8 Shots per game)

Monahan
2015- 13.7% (2.4 Shots per game)
2016- 12.5% (2.6 Shots per game)

Bennett
2015- 13.2% (1.8 Shots per game)
2016- 10.6% (1.6 Shots per game)

Now it can still be argued if that is the system or if that is an off shooting year for Gaudreau, Monahan, and Bennett? Let's also look at two guys who have been key to team success this year and have seen improved results under GG's system.

Frolik
2015 - 9.7% (2.4 shots per game)
2016 - 9.2% (2.4 shots per game)

Backlund
2015 - 13.5% (1.9 shots per game)
2016 - 10.6% (2.4 shots per game)

The team overall is actually generating more shots than last year, so that's a good sign, but the team overall is generating less offense off of the rush IMO so maybe that is impacting the shooting percentage.

Will be interesting to see how it plays out down the stretch but IMO the current system is more sustainable long term than the run & gun system we played under Hartley.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

I personally don't see Gaudreau ever putting up the same type of numbers under Gulutzan. The Flames are essentially mirroring the Penguins under Mike Johnston. He came in with a defensive system and while the team did improve immensely it came at the expense of offense as the Penguins only scored 221 goals in an entire season under him which they are on pace to pass at about the 65 game mark this season under Sullivan. The Flames may not even hit 200 goals as a team this season which will be 30-40 goals less than what they were scoring under Hartley. It's hard to see things getting any better unless Gulutzan makes some offseason adjustments as it's clear is system as-is will not get this team where it needs to be.

This.

If we are going to be going with a physical and defense-first team, a player like Gaudreau becomes less effective. A guy like Landsekog would probably be much more effective to the team success.

A player's worth is very much determined by what they have done recently and the longer Gaudreau's skill is being made ineffective, the harder it will ever be to get full value for him.

Gaudreau is 100% one of the most skilled players in the league and would certainly be top 5 in scoring in the league on a lot teams, but he won't be on a Gulutzan team. You can say get rid of Gulutzan then, but he is the type of coach that Treliving and Burke seem to want, so it may not make a difference.

[polak]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

This.

If we are going to be going with a physical and defense-first team, a player like Gaudreau becomes less effective. A guy like Landsekog would probably be much more effective to the team success.

A player's worth is very much determined by what they have done recently and the longer Gaudreau's skill is being made ineffective, the harder it will ever be to get full value for him.

Gaudreau is 100% one of the most skilled players in the league and would certainly be top 5 in scoring in the league on a lot teams, but he won't be on a Gulutzan team. You can say get rid of Gulutzan then, but he is the type of coach that Treliving and Burke seem to want, so it may not make a difference.

Agreed with this. The thought of Gaudreau having another off season next year and getting traded off of GG's team and then tearing it up with which ever team he ends up with is the stuff of my nightmares and it seems likely unless GG adjusts his system to better utilize Gaudreau. He has 2 goals in his last 22 games....

[Bingo]

I think it's a progression.

The Flames relied on blocking shots and then responding on the transition to score a lot of their goals last year, and the year before. Because of that they had high shooting percentages because they had a lot of odd man rushes.

This year they possess the puck more, so teams are defending against them more, meaning they are all back, and with that it's not as easy to get into the scoring ice as under the Hartley system.

Step one is get better in possession.

Step two is get better and driving to the scoring areas.

14/15 Flames ... red hot in the high slot


16/17 Flames ... way less dangerous. However the Flames are getting the same home plate shots as they did in 14/15. The difference, more shots from the very perimeter of home plate instead of right in the dead center.


Gaudreau takes a lot of shots and is a left winger, so he's a big part of that red zone this year.

Check out the Rangers and Capitals, two of the highest shooting percentage teams.



Blood red down the guts

[SuperMatt18]

Thing with Gaudreau is you can't get any more blood red down the guts then the shot chart when he is on the ice this season. So the team may be less dangerous this season as a whole, but that's not the case for Gaudreau.



IMO his speed and elusiveness has been a little off lately as well, but a lot of the problems can be attributed to just poor shooting percentages and bad luck this season.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

^That's the graph I was looking for that I referred to in my post earlier... definitely supports Kent Wilson's conclusions. It's just not very likely that Gaudreau and his linemates are putting all those pucks at half speed into the goalie's crest, as if they just forgot how to finish.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

Thing with Gaudreau is you can't get any more blood red down the guts then the shot chart when he is on the ice this season. So the team may be less dangerous this season as a whole, but that's not the case for Gaudreau.



IMO his speed and elusiveness has been a little off lately as well, but a lot of the problems can be attributed to just poor shooting percentages and bad luck this season.

I couldn't find that!

It was the missing piece of the puzzle.

So yeah ... certainly builds support for what he's saying. Should be more productive than he's not.

I guess the only other layer is shot velocity or some nerdy dude to rank each shot versus the target he was aiming at.

Can't see analytics ever getting to that extent.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Why not? I mean, of course you can't tell where he was aiming, but all it takes is a chip in the puck to determine speed and shot location, and there are numerous reasons to want that (the main hurdle being that it makes pucks expensive and means that pucks over glass need to be recovered).

I think they'll get there pretty soon, actually.

[CsInMyBlood]

1 goal in his last 19 games.

That's crazy for a guy like Johnny, especially with the ice and PP time he gets.

They have to start going in.

[Bear]

Some great graphs and analysis above, thanks to all.

One thing I've noticed when re-watching AC's videos is that Johnny scored a lot more goals in tight the last couple years. Quite a few tic-tac-toe plays ended with JG finishing it off around the crease. I haven't noticed him in that area at all this year.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Bear

Some great graphs and analysis above, thanks to all.

One thing I've noticed when re-watching AC's videos is that Johnny scored a lot more goals in tight the last couple years. Quite a few tic-tac-toe plays ended with JG finishing it off around the crease. I haven't noticed him in that area at all this year.

Part of the reason for that in my mind is he needs to mix it up a bit.

He's always trying that reach around the goalie's extended right pad move and I think the book is out on him.

[TheAlpineOracle]

Originally Posted by Bear

Some great graphs and analysis above, thanks to all.

One thing I've noticed when re-watching AC's videos is that Johnny scored a lot more goals in tight the last couple years. Quite a few tic-tac-toe plays ended with JG finishing it off around the crease. I haven't noticed him in that area at all this year.

Teams have forced him to the perimeter and he hasn't been able to adjust. That said, it's easy for teams to isolate him when they don't have to worry about the right winger.

[Hockey Fan #751]

I do think missing camp hurt as well. Crazy that Gaudreau and Mark Letestu have the same number of goals this season. Would have never thought that would be the case 60 games into the season.

[polak]

Originally Posted by TheAlpineOracle

Teams have forced him to the perimeter and he hasn't been able to adjust. That said, it's easy for teams to isolate him when they don't have to worry about the right winger.

Teams tried to do the same thing last season and Johnny was able to get around them. That's the element in his game that is missing. It seems like every deke he tries is a giveaway.

It's not like teams didn't plan their game around shutting him down last year when he was in the top 7 in scoring all season....

[djsFlames]

Gaudreau had enough success breaking through defences (a lot of it, actually) last season when teams where zeroed in on him to question whether he can actually do it. Of course he can.

I think he's frustrated and running moderately low on confidence. It's not as bad as it was a few weeks back, he's building it up again. But he's still thinking a little too much when his instincts will allow him to do the things to be successful. There has to be less thought, even intention, involved. Because thought = the extra second or two for the defenceman to read his intent. Before he acted too fast for defenders to react in time.