Looking at the stats: We're far, but not that far from good.

[FanIn80]

I was posting this in the Buffalo PGT, but it occured to me I'd like to have a bigger discussion so instead, I'm cutting and pasting it into a new thread.

Note: I have trouble focusing long enough to understand lengthy descriptions in glossaries, etc, so most of my interpretations are heavily coloured by my own assumptions regarding patterns and variances/differentials, etc. I did have to look into the specific criteria of an "Expected Goal" becuse I kept arguing with myself about the numerous ways in which not every goal opportunity is the same. This was a long process because I couldn't just read through a description and understand it completely, so I had to keep googling everytime something occured to me... "wait, what about shot selection... what about shooting ability... not every player treats a loose puck in crease the same way... also, what about angles... 6 players can use the same shot from the same spot on the ice, and put the puck in 6 different spots on the net..."

Anyway, this isn't about me. I'm just saying all of this to say it there's anything I'm wrong about, please correct me. I'm not trying to make people teach me how to read advanced stats, it's just that I'm positing quite a few conclusions here, so if I'm not interpreting a stat properly... you know, it's like please tell me if I have lettuce in my teeth.

Ok, here's what I was going to post:


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The Flames this season are actually one of the best teams in the entire league 5v5 (7th overall in xGF%). We've played well enough to put ourselves in postion to score 69 times (68.6 xGF, 10th best!), but the problem is that our GF Above Expected is dead last in the NHL at a whopping -17.6 (only 51 actual goals for). Meaning we're not just "not scoring," we've actually scored 18 less goals (rounded up) than what would be expected from us if all of our shooters had league-average shooting ability. Note that the high xGF% means that our systemic play is actually putting us in position to be a high-scoring 5v5 team. We're just... not actually doing it.

At 5v4, the Flames are second last in the NHL with an 82.92 xGoals%, which is both an indictment of our PP personnel as well as our PP itself. The 5v4 data shows that, while we are 5th worst at capitalizing on the PP (-4.6 GF Above Expected), we're middle of the pack at 19th overall in xGF (16.6). Because of our 5v5 Goals Above Expected being so low, it's probably safe to assume the fault-distribution on the PP slants more towards the players (shooting and/or system execution) as well, but there's also a potential argument to be made against the system itself.

On the defensive side, we've allowed only 60.3 5v5 situations that were expected to result in goals against, which is 12th best in the NHL. Our actual goals against is 61, which is almost a 0 differential (0.07 GA Above Expected) - so our goaltending isn't allowing more than it should, but it isn't preventing more than it should either. This is a step down from last year (sophomore slump?), but it's not like we're losing games because of goaltending.... we're just not winning them because of goaltending like we did last year. This is based on our entire body of work this season, keep in mind. Have there been specific games both won and lost by goaltending for us? Yes, but it's evened out over the course. Just outside the top 10 in 5v5 Expected Goals Against is really good though.

On the PK (4v5 only), we're getting almost top-10 goaltending, with a -3.52 (11th) GA Above Expected... however, we're sitting at 23rd overall in both PP Goals Against (17) and Expected PP Goals Against (20.52). Again, is it PK personnel (commitment, read/react, panic threshold) or the PK system? I mean the PK is generally more about execution than system anyway. The chances of using the wrong system to counter an opposition team's PP are probably not that high. It does get infinitely more tricky though against high-IQ teams like Forida (when they're healthy) though, as they have players that can change PP systems on the fly while in the O zone. (Which is why Barkov is such a valuable player. He can switch things up on the PP, and also read and react well on the PK. A cerebral masterpiece of a player!).

Addendum
Continuing with the PK (4v5 only), this is a touch on the silly side (but everything is interesting to me, so it might be to others as well), but we have the third-best GF Above Expected in the league (1.3) (1st is NYI with 1.7). We are tied with six other teams for the second most shorties (3), but are only 23rd overall in expected shorties, meaning we're actually over-capitalizing on our chances when shorthanded. It's a pretty stark contrast to our 5v5 and 5v4 finishing ability, and I'm not yet sure why that is. Shorties tend to slant more towards breakaways and odd-mans vs zone presence and puck possession, so it's possible our PK personnel also slant that way in terms of shooting ability. In the grand scheme of things, though, I'm not sure how much onus teams place on the offensive production of their shorthanded units (outside of perhaps EDM, where they seem to thrive more in any situation that has less total people on the ice). This was just something I looked into as a bit of brain-dessert, so to speak.

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And this is where I started getting bored lol. There's way more I could attempt to get into, but I need to do literally anything else now.

Edit: For the love of god, this thing is like 60% about me with only 3 paragraphs that have anything to do with the actual topic. I didn't intend things that way lol. Please feel free to ignore anything outside the dashed lines if you want (I guess except this part, otherwise you wouldn't see it.)
Edit: Wait. I had the first dashed line in the wrong spot. Maybe the "me to topic" distribution isn't as bad as I first thought lol.
Edit: I rewrote some stuff. I have to do a lot of cutting and pasting becuase my sentences often start on one topic and then end on a completely diferent one. And when I've mentally moved on, I tend to miss things that need to be rewritten becasue they no longer match the tone of their surroundings.
Edit: Another pass for typos etc (I had the xGF at 61 instead of 69, for example). Also cleaned up some wording.

[Groot]

Read today in an article about Kuznetsov, the Flames PK was 77% prior to him joining the PK. Since he's joined the team and PK, they are 7-4-2 and the PK has gone to 91%.

I have zero idea if this contributes to your stats or not.

[FanIn80]

Originally Posted by Groot

Read today in an article about Kuznetsov, the Flames PK was 77% prior to him joining the PK. Since he's joined the team and PK, they are 7-4-2 and the PK has gone to 91%.

I have zero idea if this contributes to your stats or not.

Yeah that's awesome. Such a huge impact he's had. There's probably a discussion there about him making the team out of camp vs any personal-development benefit accrued from not making the team. Also, the data-scope is an interesting point. I'm looking at the season so far as a whole (including the horrible start). I wonder what the picture looks like from say... after the first week of Nov?

I mean, it doesn't matter in terms of reality, but it would be interesting to look at.

[MacFlame]

thanks for this.

my eyeballs also tell me that there's a team there, but it lacks the elite offensive talent to finish and consistently create plays. The base is there already.

The addition of a high draft pick this year, Reschny and Gridin in the next year or two will help with that.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by Groot

Read today in an article about Kuznetsov, the Flames PK was 77% prior to him joining the PK. Since he's joined the team and PK, they are 7-4-2 and the PK has gone to 91%.

I have zero idea if this contributes to your stats or not.

The Oilers, Leafs, sharks and Avs were idiots not to claim him.

[Jason14h]

The Flames would be a really good team if they just had a first line

Put JG, Lindholm and MT on this team from 2022 and shift everyone else down and they are contenders. And the cap even works!

[traptor]

Yup i agree, we're far but not that far.




The problem as others have mentioned is that we essentially lack the 2-3 top of the roster players.


We need a couple of the kids to become PPG+ players.


But while we wait to find those pieces some of our key vets that give us these great underlyings like Kadri, coleman and backlund are going to age out.

[gvitaly]

Originally Posted by Groot

Read today in an article about Kuznetsov, the Flames PK was 77% prior to him joining the PK. Since he's joined the team and PK, they are 7-4-2 and the PK has gone to 91%.

I have zero idea if this contributes to your stats or not.

Yeah, Kuzy has been awesome. He looks like he has been playing in the NHL for the last 4 years.

Kevin Bahl has also been great. Not related to the PK, but the guy is +14, which is tied for 9th in the league among defensemen. What's even more impressive is that he is doing it on the Flames that have a -13 goal differential.

[Itse]

Playoffs are looking like a very realistic goal.

I don't think it's a goal the organization should have at this point, but the west and Pacific especially is just so weak this year that making the playoffs can happen almost by accident.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Itse

I don't think it's a goal the organization should have at this point, but the west and Pacific especially is just so weak this year that making the playoffs can happen almost by accident.

I just took a look at the standings. Thanks to the idiotic abundance of loser points, each conference, in total, has an identical record at 56 points above .500. The difference is that the West has the two best teams in the league by a wide margin – Colorado and Dallas, with Dallas being 8 points ahead of Anaheim and Washington, who are tied for third; and the West also has four out of the five worst teams. Whereas most teams in the East occupy one big clump in the middle of the table. Ten of the 16 Eastern teams are in the range from 32 to 36 points.

At the moment, the cutoff for a wild card spot in the East is 35 points, in the West 31. Those two powerhouse teams have been feasting on everybody else in the conference and driving their numbers down.

Incidentally, in the league as a whole, 13 teams are in the range from 28 to 32 points, with Toronto at the top of that group and Calgary at the bottom. This helps to explain why teams have been so reluctant to make trades this year. Almost anybody could finish almost anywhere, and GMs don't know whether to shoot or go blind.

[The Cobra]

Originally Posted by MacFlame

thanks for this.

my eyeballs also tell me that there's a team there, but it lacks the elite offensive talent to finish and consistently create plays. The base is there already.

The addition of a high draft pick this year, Reschny and Gridin in the next year or two will help with that.

Except the base is quite old for the most part.

You take Andersson, Huberdeau, Kadri and Coleman out of that base, there likely isn't any team there any more.

You are correct, the current team isn't all that bad for sure, but it's not sustainable into a contender.

[MrMike]

Wasn’t our record with Martin Pospisil something ridiculous compared to without him?

Silly, but I think he really contributes something we are missing.

[CalgaryFan1988]

We are 3rd last in point percentage, after going 7-2-1 in our last 10.

I think we are a little far from good.

[MacFlame]

Originally Posted by The Cobra

Except the base is quite old for the most part.

You take Andersson, Huberdeau, Kadri and Coleman out of that base, there likely isn't any team there any more.

You are correct, the current team isn't all that bad for sure, but it's not sustainable into a contender.

I could not disagree more.

Huberdeau-Frost-Coronatois a fairly good 2nd line (or even a 3rd line if you don't think it's a second)
Then, you still have Honzek, Backlund, zary nd farabee.to round out middle six.

On the back end, you still have weegar, Kuznetsov, Bahl and Bruz coming in.

And then, of course you have Wolf.

The base is there. They need to add a couple of elite talents for sure, but there's the makings a a team there.no team has 6 top 3 picks in their top 6.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by MacFlame

I could not disagree more.

Huberdeau-Frost-Coronatois a fairly good 2nd line (or even a 3rd line if you don't think it's a second)
Then, you still have Honzek, Backlund, zary nd farabee.to round out middle six.

On the back end, you still have weegar, Kuznetsov, Bahl and Bruz coming in.

And then, of course you have Wolf.

The base is there. They need to add a couple of elite talents for sure, but there's the makings a a team there.no team has 6 top 3 picks in their top 6.

This is like pointing at a rock and saying you have almost everything you need for a microchip.

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Not necessarily. There are 2-3 guys I could see becoming top players: Parekh, Reschny, and Gridin. They all have the pedigree and have shown well at every lower level. Give it a year or two and you might have a very good team again. Add one more really good winger in free agency and you might have a perennial playoff team. That's not even considering all the other solid prospects we have in our system that could help to fill out our roster.

Of course, things never turn out the way you predict, but that goes both ways, both negative and positive. There may be another diamond in the rough that we haven't even considered as part of the puzzle yet (Wyttenbach would be one that's shown well this year out of nowhere).

[Jason14h]

Originally Posted by MacFlame

I could not disagree more.

Huberdeau-Frost-Coronatois a fairly good 2nd line (or even a 3rd line if you don't think it's a second)
Then, you still have Honzek, Backlund, zary nd farabee.to round out middle six.

On the back end, you still have weegar, Kuznetsov, Bahl and Bruz coming in.

And then, of course you have Wolf.

The base is there. They need to add a couple of elite talents for sure, but there's the makings a a team there.no team has 6 top 3 picks in their top 6.

That's not a great 2nd line for a contender. Maybe if you replace Frost with a better center (Kadri Quality) it is.

The third line won't have Backlund - He'll be gone before we compete. Honzek hasn't shown anything really and is hurt again, and Farabee will be a UFA.

The D would be near the bottom of the league and Weegar is getting old/will be when we're ready to compete

As Kadri, Coleman, Backlund and Anderson age out or are traded, you need to replace those 4 just to be back to where you are.

So really they need a full first line of new stars, and replace those guys. That's 7 impact players you need to find and develop.

We are no where close to having a new core to contend unless every draft pick hits - and they won't. Almost all with bust or at best become a bottom of the roster player.

The odds of even getting a Backlund and Coleman type players (1000 games played) with late firsts (20-32nd) is 5%.....

(It's higher because guys drafted in the last 12 years obviously can't be at 1000 games yet, so lets double to 10%)

https://thehockeywriters.com/success...l-draft-picks/

It isn't as easy as penciling in every pick and saying we're looking ok. We have very little blue chip prospects, and no existing (skilled) core that will be with this team going forward when we are competitive (fingers crossed) outside of Wolf and Coranto.

[MacFlame]

Wow....lots of negativity around here.

Go look at a team like Florida or even Colorado. How many of the players in their top 6 were drafted by their team? How many were drafted in top top 3? Top 5 even?

Both clearly drafted generational players, I get that. But they didnt need to draft top 3 for years or anything. Good drafting. Good development. Good trades.

The flames have some good key players. Be happy. Its coming.

[gvitaly]

Originally Posted by MacFlame

I could not disagree more.

Huberdeau-Frost-Coronatois a fairly good 2nd line (or even a 3rd line if you don't think it's a second)
Then, you still have Honzek, Backlund, zary nd farabee.to round out middle six.

On the back end, you still have weegar, Kuznetsov, Bahl and Bruz coming in.

And then, of course you have Wolf.

The base is there. They need to add a couple of elite talents for sure, but there's the makings a a team there.no team has 6 top 3 picks in their top 6.

That would be tough to do because there are approximately 40-45 active forwards that were picked in the top 3 in entire NHL. Probably only about 30-35 still have a top 6 role.

I think Anaheim leads the way with 3: Carlsson, McTavish, Sennecke.

IMO a base for a contender is drafting 2-3 players that turn out in the top 5 of their draft class, and supplement them with 2-3 players that turn out in the top 10 of their respective draft, all within a 5-6 year window.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by gvitaly

That would be tough to do because there are approximately 40-45 active forwards that were picked in the top 3 in entire NHL. Probably only about 30-35 still have a top 6 role.

I think Anaheim leads the way with 3: Carlsson, McTavish, Sennecke.

IMO a base for a contender is drafting 2-3 players that turn out in the top 5 of their draft class, and supplement them with 2-3 players that turn out in the top 10 of their respective draft, all within a 5-6 year window.

I like where you're going with this, but hoping/expecting to acquire 5 guys that are in the top 10 of their draft class, in a 5 year window, is asking for too much. That's a universe of 50-60 players - hoping to get 5 of them would beyond fortunate.

Eliminate the 5-6 year window part, and I think your framework is good.