[Rumour] LeBrun: Flames have interest in Toffoli (and other RHS top 6 forwards)

[gvitaly]

Originally Posted by Beatle17

If you look at the playoff standings the Pacific has 5 teams in the playoffs currently. PPG can get really thrown off by 3 point games, so if St. Louis has 70 points and Winnipeg has 50 the PPG don't determine anything when Calgary has 57 and Vegas has 55 (point totals used are example only). Total points determine playoff spots.

It doesn't take into account that the teams played an uneven amount of games. Nashville for example has 5 games in hand on Vegas. So while at the moment the Pacific has 5 teams in the playoffs, all the teams in the central are in the playoffs picture. Meanwhile, 3 of the teams in the Pacific are out of it. Also St. Louis and Colorado are locks to make it. Which is more than I can say about any team in the Pacific.


Edit: Also since 3 point games are throwing you off - The central has 145 regulation wins in 345 games (42%). The pacific has 139 regulation wins in 399 games (35%).

[Hackey]

Top two teams in each division...

Boston and Tampa
Washington and Pittsburgh
St Louis and Colorado
Vancouver and Edmonton

I think I know which division I'd rather be in.

[Poe969]

When both Vancouver and Edmonton are ahead of you, I don't think it matters what division you're in. If you can't beat the other snails, you won't beat the racehorses.

[djsFlames]

Both of those clubs are
Big
Gargantuan
Pretenders.
Without question

But yeah, you have to be able to separate yourself from the snails.

[TheSquatch]

That's the pervasive issue with this team - even if, and it is an "if" they separate themselves in this division, it means little. The Flames have not, for example, had a good record against playoff teams in other divisions in the last few years (last year may be an exception). Beating the Coyotes and Wilds of the league but getting mashed by the Bruins, Capitals, Penguins etc for the most part. But again, management only cares about making the playoffs for many reasons, there's a blindness about how good the team actually is (or isn't).

We're busy laughing at Edmonton but the Flames are not much better this year. Is the team better than the Oilers? You'd say, yeah, it's built better, better defensemen, better forward depth. Okay, so separate yourselves, get more points.

I think the James Neal thing hurt more than we realized - he was supposed to "fix" the hole on the right side, and it just didn't work, and we wound up trading for yet another LW.

I don't know the answer, I don't think shifting a piece or two does much now, it isn't clear who is best where on this team, and a bunch of guys are on an uncomfortable middle ground now (Backlund should be a 3c not a wing for the most obvious example). So if the team build is now Lindholm, Monahan, Backlund, Ryan down the middle, you chip off Janko and get a winger. If Bennett isn't working here in a meaningful way, you move him for a reliable NHL caliber RW if you can. If the future is Dube, Mangiapane, Valimaki and Andersson, you better look really hard at getting something for Giordano very, very soon.

I want to keep Lindy, Andersson, Valimaki, Tkachuk, and Rittich. Everyone else could be replaced imho.

Edit: just adding some stats - last year's ultra-good regular season campaign saw the flames go .55 against playoff teams during the season.

[Beatle17]

Originally Posted by gvitaly

It doesn't take into account that the teams played an uneven amount of games. Nashville for example has 5 games in hand on Vegas. So while at the moment the Pacific has 5 teams in the playoffs, all the teams in the central are in the playoffs picture. Meanwhile, 3 of the teams in the Pacific are out of it. Also St. Louis and Colorado are locks to make it. Which is more than I can say about any team in the Pacific.


Edit: Also since 3 point games are throwing you off - The central has 145 regulation wins in 345 games (42%). The pacific has 139 regulation wins in 399 games (35%).

I should have qualified in the EXAMPLE, St. Louis and Winnipeg have played 55 games each, Calgary and Vegas have played 55 games each. Central teams have 120 pts in 110 games, Pacific teams have 112 pts in 110 games. PPG favours the central teams but playoff position favours the Pacific teams.

All stats are not equal. The teams don't play a balanced schedule and if the top 3 teams in the central are killing all the other ####ty teams then the division shows a higher ppg. The only stat that matters is total points after 82 games PER TEAM, not PPG by division.

Currently the Pacific division has 5 playoff teams, so by that reasoning alone, they have a better division.

Lets use player scoring as an EXAMPLE. If Crosby leads the scoring race with 82 points in 82 games and Connor has 81 points in 79 games, then Crosby wins the scoring title. Doesn't matter that Connor has more PPG he doesn't have as many points.

Counting stats are the ones that matter in both examples. Most points = in the playoffs, most points = Art Ross Trophy.

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by Poe969

When both Vancouver and Edmonton are ahead of you, I don't think it matters what division you're in. If you can't beat the other snails, you won't beat the racehorses.

If you can beat the other snails you can probably make it to the Conference finals. That wouldn’t suck.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by TheSquatch

...The Flames have not, for example, had a good record against playoff teams in other divisions in the last few years (last year may be an exception). Beating the Coyotes and Wilds of the league but getting mashed by the Bruins, Capitals, Penguins etc for the most part...

Is that a fact? It would be great to see the numbers to support this assertion.

[blender]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

If you can beat the other snails you can probably make it to the Conference finals. That wouldn’t suck.

Agree, but rest assured if the Flames make the conference finals this season there will still be people here saying that they had an easy path and are still nothing more than mediocre.

[The Cobra]

Originally Posted by Beatle17

Currently the Pacific division has 5 playoff teams, so by that reasoning alone, they have a better division.

You can spin things anyway you want, but the fact is, the Pacific is by far the weakest division in the NHL.

There isn’t really one decent team in the division.



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[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by blender

Agree, but rest assured if the Flames make the conference finals this season there will still be people here saying that they had an easy path and are still nothing more than mediocre.

Maybe they’re right and honestly don’t even care. Would just like to see some playoff hockey.

In 1986 and 1989 the Flames beat two fairly average teams (Blues and Blackhawks) in the semi-finals. Those teams never really amounted to much but at least they won more playoff series than we have in 15 years.

Treliving either needs to make some serious improvement to this team or go all in to acquire some draft and/or prospect capital. If he does neither, I will really question his ability to do the job.

[blender]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

Maybe they’re right and honestly don’t even care. Would just like to see some playoff hockey.

In 1986 and 1989 the Flames beat two fairly average teams (Blues and Blackhawks) in the semi-finals. Those teams never really amounted to much but at least they won more playoff series than we have in 15 years.

Treliving either needs to make some serious improvement to this team or go all in to acquire some draft and/or prospect capital. If he does neither, I will really question his ability to do the job.

I agree 100%. This is a show me league. The Flames are in a great position to upgrade their roster and do some damage in a division that has 5 decent teams but no elite teams. Granted they will have to make some adjustments and find some consistency. If the wheels fall off in the next 2 weeks, then fine, sell and reload, but I would bet everything I have that the Flames management is expecting the team to perform and be a force going forward, and is looking at ways to augment the roster to improve their chances.

As much as it is easy to find flaws in the makeup of the roster, there is a lot of talent there. This season has been characterized by execution issues. That can be fixed.

[TheSquatch]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

Is that a fact? It would be great to see the numbers to support this assertion.

I don't have an actual single number stat to back this up, it's something I was told two years ago by a person who did at that point care about that sort of thing (he may have dug it out of the Hockey News, that was his big thing). Having just gone back through a couple of seasons' worth of the records, there are notable wins against teams like Washington (followed pretty often by notable losses to teams like Ottawa) and Boston, but the record against playoff teams isn't great (at the end of 2016-17 season they went a crazy strong 19-6-1 for example, the losses being to Boston, Wash, Nash, LA, Rangers, and Arz, with notable wins against the Pens and Tampa, but the kind of "regular" wins I'm talking about stacked up against poorer teams, as they should: Jersey, Carolina, Detroit etc) Flames started that season terrible, and won a lot at the end to get the wildcard.

Looking at 2017-18 you see a much more mediocre performance, I just opened "Feb 2018" and you see 7-7-1 and the wins are Chicago, Jersey, NYI, Nash, ARZ and Col, and losses to Tampa, NYR, Boston (and a bunch in conference too).

So I don't have "the number", no, and I would love to see it (ie, what is the exact record for the flames against playoff teams vs non playoff teams over the years, particularly out of division ones). I'd love to see the number of points they "should have had" but lost to the Buffalos, Arizonas, Floridas etc that should be "easy points".

(And not to change the subject, but what's actually really neat is looking at those schedules, you see the good teams ramping up for the playoffs, stacking up points at the end of the year and starting to really roll, the wins are harder to get for middling teams. And one is reminded that we had Bryan Elliot not long ago.... sigh.)

[Sylvanfan]

It is at the point where you either push in the chips and go for it, or you fade out and start making plans for the next game.

[TheSquatch]

Originally Posted by blender

Agree, but rest assured if the Flames make the conference finals this season there will still be people here saying that they had an easy path and are still nothing more than mediocre.

No, I would just be really, really surprised.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Beatle17

You mean the division with 5 of the 8 playoff teams in it?

Perhaps the better way to say it is 3 out of 8 teams out of the hunt completely.

All 7 CEN teams are in the hunt (with 1-2 locked in). NAS and MIN are 6th and 7th in RegPt%.

No easy points in the CEN. It's a little hard to think of SJ, ANA, or LAK as 'easy' points (after so many years), but they are certainly the easiest in the west.

[blender]

The only thing that separates the Pacific from the other divisions is no elite teams. Instead of a couple elite teams and 3-4 decent teams, they have 5 decent teams.
It doesn't mean the division sucks. Any of the top three finishers would be in the playoffs in either conference.

[The Cobra]

Originally Posted by blender

The only thing that separates the Pacific from the other divisions is no elite teams. Instead of a couple elite teams and 3-4 decent teams, they have 5 decent teams.
It doesn't mean the division sucks. Any of the top three finishers would be in the playoffs in either conference.

And the fact that the Pacific has 3 bottom feeders, while the Central has none.

Which means that other than the middle teams that each division has, the Central has some elite teams and the pacific corresponding teams are bottom feeders. That's a huge difference.

The Pacific has a number of average teams and 3 bottom feeders.

The Central has 2 elite teams and a number of average teams.

[dino7c]

Originally Posted by The Cobra

You can spin things anyway you want, but the fact is, the Pacific is by far the weakest division in the NHL.

There isn’t really one decent team in the division.



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But there are a few teams that have dominated the east

[The Cobra]

Originally Posted by dino7c

But there are a few teams that have dominated the east

Yes, but you are looking at a very small sample size.

And since those teams have middling records overall even with weaker schedules, their record over a larger sample size is a better indicator of their relative strength.


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