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

[Spike Man]

Interesting write up, thanks for this.

What I also get from this analysis is that Huska (apart from the PP) is a good coach. He has a relatively mediocre team competing very well 5 on 5 night after night.

I think it would be a big mistake to get rid of him before the younger skilled players reach their peak production years.

[gvitaly]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

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.

It's a tough ask, but since the organization keeps referencing the Dallas model:
2017: Top 5(2) - Robertson, Heiskanen; Top 10(1) - Oettinger
2019: Top 5(1) - Harley
2021: Top 5(1) - Johnston, Top 10(1?) - Stankoven(?)

Maybe a 7-8 year window. I was just trying to narrow it down, to avoid mixing players that are past their prime with a new core.

[Jiri Hrdina]

^I would add Roope Hintz to that. 49th overall in 2015. Though he's probably not top 10 in his draft, largely because it's a really good draft. But he's probably top 15.

[Jay Random]

Should we cut Wolf from the team? He wasn't even a first-round pick, let alone top 3. That seems like cheating. At the very least, the scouts were doing it wrong.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by gvitaly

It's a tough ask, but since the organization keeps referencing the Dallas model:
2017: Top 5(2) - Robertson, Heiskanen; Top 10(1) - Oettinger
2019: Top 5(1) - Harley
2021: Top 5(1) - Johnston, Top 10(1?) - Stankoven(?)

Maybe a 7-8 year window. I was just trying to narrow it down, to avoid mixing players that are past their prime with a new core.

Definitely helps when you get the top scoring guy (by a wide margin) in the draft at 21st overall

[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

Should we cut Wolf from the team? He wasn't even a first-round pick, let alone top 3. That seems like cheating. At the very least, the scouts were doing it wrong.

I just love when I get raked over the coals for making a strawman, but when other people do it it's perfectly ok for some reason.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

I just love when I get raked over the coals for making a strawman, but when other people do it it's perfectly ok for some reason.

Go back to my post and reread my signature where it explains about sarcasm.

We have a few posters (you are not one of them) who seem to think that only players picked in the top 5 or top 3 of the draft can be franchise players, and loudly criticize the team for not acting on that assumption.

[Vinny01]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

Definitely helps when you get the top scoring guy (by a wide margin) in the draft at 21st overall

Stars won the COVID lottery with that one. Had he played a full season the year before he certainly would have rose to near the top of the draft board

[FanIn80]

I snuck a bit of fun just now into the original post, taking a look at offence on the PK.

I'm going take a look at some sectional data now. Kind of a then vs now thing.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

Go back to my post and reread my signature where it explains about sarcasm.

We have a few posters (you are not one of them) who seem to think that only players picked in the top 5 or top 3 of the draft can be franchise players, and loudly criticize the team for not acting on that assumption.

We're loudly criticiing the idea that any organization would make "we'll just draft better than anyone else" their strategy.

Yes, it's possible to find elite talent later in the draft. It's just stupid to bet anything on that possibility. You don't need to look further than the Flames draft history to see how incredibly unlikely it is.

Most likely you will not succeed if you try that, and while you're not drafting them, other teams are finding them where they likely turn up: at the top of the draft.

Scouting is also constantly improving, which means it's harder and harder to find the best talent anywhere else than the top of the draft

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

^I would add Roope Hintz to that. 49th overall in 2015. Though he's probably not top 10 in his draft, largely because it's a really good draft. But he's probably top 15.

So the top (2nd best) team in the league drafted their top 2 centers at 21st and 49th overall?

[Roof-Daddy]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

So the top (2nd best) team in the league drafted their top 2 centers at 21st and 49th overall?

The Dallas model

[Psytic]

Originally Posted by 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:


================================================

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.

==================================================

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.

Good breakdown. I honestly think that high xGF% is a bit of a mirage caused by Score Effects though.

When you look at that massive gap between Expected Goals and Actual Goals (-17.6 is insane), it usually tells a specific story: we go down early because we can't finish, the other team goes into a defensive shell (the "turtle"), and we spend the next 40 minutes racking up shots and possession time. The models love that volume, so our xGF% skyrockets and says we "dominated," but in reality, the other team was just letting us have the outside because they knew we don't have the shooters to beat them from there or at least before this little heater.

It’s less about us being a secret juggernaut and more about us chasing games. I actually checked the schedule and the game logs to verify this, and it backs it up. That "little heater" we just went on was the schedule softening up. We beat Buffalo twice, Utah, and San Jose, all ho hum teams. But when you look at the losses against contenders like Tampa (1-5) or Vegas (1-6), we aren't driving play, we're getting caved in. Even the "close" losses like that Detroit game feel fake because we're just scoring late when the other team stops pressing.

That -17 finishing deficit isn't just bad luck at this point either; it's a talent issue. The system Huska has is working to create looks, but we just don't have the guys to bury them. Like you said about the PP, it's definitely a personnel thing. We're a "Process Good, Talent Bad" team right now. It’s basically a team of good 2nd and 3rd liners missing 2-3 elite pieces up front and one stabilizing presence on the back end.

Reschny and Parekh look like those elite pieces for the future, but they probably need at least one more dynamic partner upfront, plus someone who is just good at everything on the back end like a Verhoeff (not sure whats going on with Weegar this season). The problem is the timeline gap. By the time the kids are ready, guys like Coleman, Kadri, and Backlund will have aged out so we definitely need to move at least Andersson and Kadri before father time starts catching up.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Itse

We're loudly criticiing the idea that any organization would make "we'll just draft better than anyone else" their strategy.

Yes, it's possible to find elite talent later in the draft. It's just stupid to bet anything on that possibility. You don't need to look further than the Flames draft history to see how incredibly unlikely it is.

Yup. Incredibly unlikely to draft Fox in the 3rd round, Gaudreau in the 4th round, Wolf in the 7th, to get Giordano undrafted, and if you want to go way back Fleury in the 8th (which doesn't even exist anymore). That stuff never happens, especially to the Flames.

It seems silly to me to talk about the low probability of things that have already actually happened, particularly when one of those players is actually on the team right now and is the single most valuable player on the roster.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

So the top (2nd best) team in the league drafted their top 2 centers at 21st and 49th overall?

Detroit's 1C was 15 OA and all their others are well back.
TB's were 77th and 79th OA in their drafts (one wasn't their pick).
Minnie's were 20 and 24th OA.
Carolina's were 35 and 47th

[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

Yup. Incredibly unlikely to draft Fox in the 3rd round, Gaudreau in the 4th round, Wolf in the 7th, to get Giordano undrafted, and if you want to go way back Fleury in the 8th (which doesn't even exist anymore). That stuff never happens, especially to the Flames.

It seems silly to me to talk about the low probability of things that have already actually happened, particularly when one of those players is actually on the team right now and is the single most valuable player on the roster.

None of those guys are the level of a MacKinnon, Crosby, Malkin, Ovechkin, Kane, Barkov, McDavid, Eichel, Matthews, etc.

And good as Gio was, he was not on the level of Makar, Hughes, Heiskanen, etc.

Yes it's possible (though very difficult) to get elite players outside of the top few selections of the draft. But the elite of the elite players are usually found at the top of the draft.

[MrMike]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

None of those guys are the level of a MacKinnon, Crosby, Malkin, Ovechkin, Kane, Barkov, McDavid, Eichel, Matthews, etc.

And good as Gio was, he was not on the level of Makar, Hughes, Heiskanen, etc.

Yes it's possible (though very difficult) to get elite players outside of the top few selections of the draft. But the elite of the elite players are usually found at the top of the draft.

Fox was in the conversation with Makar and Hughes for best defenceman, I’d say that counts.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by MrMike

Fox was in the conversation with Makar and Hughes for best defenceman, I’d say that counts.

Pretty sure that's conversation went "He doesn't belong in that same category".

[CliffFletcher]

If a team was confident it could hit home runs with 15th - 45th overall picks, they’d trade down in the draft every time and profit.

Nobody has claimed it’s impossible to draft elite players in that range. The point is that it’s less likely than drafting elite players in the top 5. And that’s all drafting is - playing the odds.

At the 2025 draft lottery, Conroy expressed frustration at how close the Flames came to winning the 2nd lottery. Presumably - and I don’t think I’m reading minds here - he was pretty sure he would have gotten a better prospect at 4 OA than at 18 OA.