Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

[BACKCHECK!!!]

Something something worst save % in the NHL.

The skaters have had ups and downs. Good periods and bad periods.

The goaltending has been uniformly atrocious.

I'm normally very slow to blame goalies, and it's not like every goal is their fault.

But there's not a team in NHL history that will have a winning record with their goalies letting in two or more softies per game.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by opendoor

Only if you completely ignore the effect that trailing as much as the Flames have has on possession stats. The only thing propping up the Flames' numbers are the fact that they've trailed for 3 times as long as they've led so far this season. Trailing teams virtually always generate more shot attempts than leading ones, and that's a big reason why the Flames' overall numbers aren't too bad. But, when the game is tied the Flames have the worst possession numbers in the entire league.

If you adjust for score effects to account for that disparity, they're currently 27th in the NHL in Score Adjusted Corsi which is right in line with their 27th best points %.

One thing that shows to me is that the Flames aren't giving up when they are down.

The whole shots for and against as being the end all and be all of stats is that it doesn't really show possession. If you watched the USSR back in the day they would often have very few shots per game because they wouldn't give up possession for a chancy play. If they couldn't carry the puck in they would circle back over and over again until it worked. Their real possession time had little to do with their shot attempts. In the NHL at the time, it would be more accurate but times have changed and teams are using different strategies which aren't necessarily ranked by Corsi.

[AcGold]

If you angle the shooter to the outside and force him to take shots that the goalie can easily see you don't get scored on much. If you flop around and let the opposition have 3 or 4 shots uncontested point blank at the goalie it's hard to stop shots. We don't need statistics to see that the goals are almost all from leaving the front of our net wide open and giving away basically 1 on 0's multiple times per game. As someone who has played goalie a little the worst feeling is breakaways or 2 on 0's. You lose all confidence because the shooter and passers have infinite possibilities as where a good defender will force the shot outside making it much much more easy to predict where the shot will come from and where it will go and it's infinitely harder to deke the goalie. Less flopping, more pass coverage.

[GranteedEV]

Last six games fenwick%:

vs Det 61.76%
@ NYR 48.33
@ NYI 48.10
@ Ottawa 62.12
vs Montreal 54.79
@ Edmonton 60.00

Originally Posted by GranteedEV

Most certainly.

That said there's one Flame who hasn't been positive in the analytics department over this stretch... Russell. He's been in the last 5 games:

49.09 (0) (Russell-Hamilton on the comeback attempt.. A New Hope)
----------
41.46 (-2) (Russell-Engelland) (The Possession Menace)
41.18 (-3) (Russell-Engelland) (The Corsi-Clone Wars)
--------------
39.39 (-1) (The Return of the Wideman-Russell)
36.36 (-3) (Wideman-Russell Strike Back)

aaaaaaaaand....

64.29% (+2) (Russell-Brodie.... Revenge of the Kris)

[mikeecho]

Originally Posted by GranteedEV

Last six games fenwick%:

vs Det 61.76%
@ NYR 48.33
@ NYI 48.10
@ Ottawa 62.12
vs Montreal 54.79
@ Edmonton 60.00



aaaaaaaaand....

64.29% (+2) (Russell-Brodie.... Revenge of the Kris)

Amazing what can happen when TJ carries him on his shoulders!

[driveway]

The stat that's the most telling of our season so far is our PDO (save percentage + shooting percentage)

Last year, we had the 5th highest PDO in the league at 101.0 mostly on the strength of a very high shooting percentage of 8.7%, good for 3rd best in the league. Our save percentage was 92.2, good for 18th, right in the middle of the pack.

So far this year our PDO is a league-worst 93.6, this is a catastrophically bad number. Since 2005-06, the very worst season-long PDO was 96.0, and frequently the worst PDO in the league is up around 98.0.

So what's killing us. In a word: goaltending.

Our shooting percentage is 20th in the league at 6.9% not a great number, but at this point in the season there are a lot of teams with unusually high shooting percentages. Last year there were only 9 teams who finished with a shooting percentage of 8 or higher. So a percentage around 7 is pretty much bang-on league average.

Now our goalies.

Our save percentage is a brutal .868. That's just terrible. Teams almost never finish a season with a save percentage of under .900, even the very worst teams in the league are around .901 or .902.

Now, if we had, let's say, a PDO of 96.6 - usually this would be the worst PDO in the league come the end of the season, just adding that 3% to our save percentage, would have already saved us 8.61 goals.

Right now, we're bang-on our Pythagorean projection of 3 wins, based on goals for and against. Save those 9 goals and that adds another win to our expectations. Based on how the games have played out this year, 9 goals saved could easily be two or even three more wins.

And this would still be with a shockingly bad save-percentage of .898. If we had league-average 5v5 goaltending: .920, we'd have allowed 27 less goals so far this year, actually have a positive GF/GA number and a pythagorean projection of 7 wins in 12 games.

The good news: our piss-poor goaltending numbers are... wait for it... unsustainable. NHL teams simply don't run sub .900 goaltending for entire seasons. Edmonton last year, with all its horribad goaltending finished with a .902. Buffalo actually finished with .923.

While I am of the opinion that our poor start has blown our playoff chances for this year, it is exceedingly unlikely our goaltending will continue to be all-time-terrible and the numbers are going to come back up.

This is what it feels like to be on the other side of the equation, last year we ran hot, this year we're running cold. This is doubly true if we continue to have positive SAT% games the way we've been over the last little stretch. Our SAT% of 48.81 is already a significant improvement on last year's 44.7. We're better than the Penguins, Islanders, and Canadiens, all of whom are playoff teams right now.

The underlying numbers indicate that the Flames are significantly underperforming based almost entirely on their inability to keep the puck out of their own net, and doing so at a rate which vastly outstrips what is usually seen in the NHL. Over the course of the season, that number will come up and we'll see more positive results.

But jesus god are we gonna need to find ourselves a goalie.

edit: It's worth pointing out that all these statistics are for 5v5 play.

[To Be Quite Honest]

Pretty much what will save this season is to trade Ramo/Hiller for another goalie who has as an average save percentage and keep the one who stays in the minors. It gets rid os the 3 goalie stink and the main goalie that can keep a .925% min here. The 3 goalie crap is in their heads and it's managements fault. They should have never signed Ramo, but they did so to fix it they have to remove the problem.

[Finger Cookin]

Originally Posted by To Be Quite Honest

It gets rid os the 3 goalie stink and the main goalie that can keep a .925% min here.

Who is this magical, all star calibre goalie that will fall into our lap? Last year there were 10 goalies in the league who played in 10 or more games had a .925 or greater save percentage.

[To Be Quite Honest]

Originally Posted by Finger Cookin

Who is this magical, all star calibre goalie that will fall into our lap? Last year there were 10 goalies in the league who played in 10 or more games had a .925 or greater save percentage.

Ohhhh, whatever!

There's that one 1st string goalie in Montreal that's lost a few lately... I can't remember his name, but it should be an easy trade. Raymond and Wideman should get it done.

[Finger Cookin]

Originally Posted by To Be Quite Honest

Ohhhh, whatever!

There's that one 1st string goalie in Montreal that's lost a few lately... I can't remember his name, but it should be an easy trade. Raymond and Wideman should get it done.

If only we still had Hanowksi to sweeten the pot.

[Cali Panthers Fan]

But they would have to do it now for it to make sense.

I wouldn't go for Price...his RGI is too low

[Enoch Root]

I wish I could say those jokes never get old. But that would be a statistic.

[heep223]

Originally Posted by driveway

The stat that's the most telling of our season so far is our PDO (save percentage + shooting percentage)
..... insightful post

Thanks for this....I noticed the ridiculous PDO as well and came to post about it.

I also noticed that there are no Yost articles pointing this out and being rammed down our throats, like when our PDO was high last season. Hmm

[CSharp]

From the Flames fan's perspective, stats have always favoured the opposition except for the year that the Flames won the Stanley Cup.

[HartAttack]

Originally Posted by driveway

....Great Post.....

While I love the effort put into this post, and agree with mostly everything you noted, I find it hilariously hilarious that we're now using the Pythagorean theorem to predict how many wins a hockey team should have.

[Torture]

Originally Posted by HartAttack

While I love the effort put into this post, and agree with mostly everything you noted, I find it hilariously hilarious that we're now using the Pythagorean theorem to predict how many wins a hockey team should have.

I was thinking the same thing - what the hell does the Pythagorean theorem have to do with anything?

[Jason14h]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_expectation

Its not the pythagorean theorem

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Some good posts re: even strength, but just to add on re: special teams:

• Flames are 4th worst in the league at generating shots on the PP, and PP results are actually outpacing this as the 5v4 shooting percentage is about average. They've been decent at getting onto the PP, sitting 11th in total PP TOI;
• Flames are average so far in terms of preventing shots on the PK, sitting 12th at about 48 shots against per 60 minutes. However, as at even strength, goaltending is hurting them, with a team save percentage of .830. There are actually a number of teams sitting around this, it being early season.

Nothing there that you could say is really driving the bus. 5 on 5 seems to be the main problem, while the special teams just aren't bailing them out.

For me, the problem appears to be a combination of two things: being a non-elite hockey squad to begin with, and then getting absolutely garbage-fire level goaltending. If you have any doubt what bad goaltending can do, look at last season's Wild team: one of the better play-driving squads in the league, but their goalies couldn't stop a beach ball until Dubnyk showed up and suddenly played all-star quality netminding. Before then, looked like they were destined to miss the playoffs. From then on in, best record in the league. You can't outplay AHL-quality netminding, even if you're a good team (as the Wild were).

Incidentally, look for Philly's PP to go bonkers relatively speaking pretty soon... worst 5v4 shooting percentage in the league while generating shots at the second highest rate. That can't keep up. Much like Anaheim's 2.75 5 on 5 shooting percentage before their game last night, and Chicago's current ~4%.

[tvp2003]

Here's an easy stat:

Out of the first 12 games of the season, 8 have come against teams that are currently in the top 10 in the league (technically top 13 since there are 4 teams tied for 10th). MTL, NYR, STL, WPG, NYI, WAS, VAN x2. Our record is a ghastly 1-7-0.

The other four games have come against the rest of the league (OTT, DET, EDM x2) -- in those games we are 2-1-1.

Result: For a middle of the pack team, we are winning games we should be winning, and losing games we shouldn't be winning. Obviously the win-loss record doesn't show (i) how we've been destroyed during the 8 "difficult" games, and (ii) how we've barely scraped by in the 4 "easy" games, but the point stands.

<< ducks >>

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Maybe, but this early in the season, the current top 10 teams in the league aren't the ten best teams in the league - Winnipeg and Minnesota, while good teams, aren't likely top 10 teams, and the Ducks, Hawks and Bolts pretty clearly are. So suggesting that those three would qualify as "Flames should win vs" teams simply based on standings position seems wrong.

Hell, Vancouver's tied for 10th in points, and the only reason for that is because they got 3 of 4 vs the Flames the first week.