There are few for me, but one of them which wasn't mentioned before is - may be some players upset and don't care anymore?
Frolik, Brodie and Jankowski are almost traded, so they know that they are not on this team's future, and waiting to be traded? May be Harmonic has some kind of knowledge, so he may not want to stay here?
They are not tight group anymore?
Well it was as bad an offseason as a team coming off a conference championship could have. The big trade that needed to happen fell through and the one trade that went through was to send out a player where winning followed (don't care what anyone says about Neal it's true about winning following him as the Oilers are further proof) for one for the worst contract in the league and the stench of losing. .
That's ridiculous. The Flames were a top team last year in spite of Neal, not because of him.
They're certainly not struggling this season because of James Neal not being on the team. I don't care how many goals he's potting in for the Oilers.
Sadly, Lucic has been a better Flame than Neal was. That's not saying a ton, but more of an indictment on how poorly Neal played last year.
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-Johnny had his soul stolen
-Monahan is too worried about two-way play to score
-Gio looks like the opposite of 'young & fresh'
-Backlund and Frolik angered a witch and now can't hit the broad side of a barn
-Jankowski decided to play like a bust
-Rittich wants to play the puck like Smitty
Systems Stuff
-Too much rimming it around the boards when we have the o-zone and team is not built for this style of play. Perhaps a symptomatic effect from not enough players attacking the center of the ice, instead waiting on the opposite half wall for the high D to funnel it back to them. It ends up looking very much like Gulutzan hockey.
-Everyone's shooting like it's junior hockey, which is to say... looking up, picking your spot. That one extra second doesn't seem like much, until after "oops it got knocked off my stick/deflected/blocked and now I have to skate all the way back up ice". Get it off your stick quicker.
-First forward backchecker often seems to be late to the party (see Lucic's postgame comments). No puck support for D means a lot of lost puck battles / more odd man rushes than necessary.
-When defense has control of the puck they are making the outlet pass 100% of the time instead of trying to skate it out themselves. Or, when they have one forechecker standing in front of the net to cut them off as they try to skate it out, have one forward swing behind the net to pick it up with speed. (I don't know why they forgot about this as a breakout option. Too many times I see one of our D with the puck behind the net and a forechecker just waiting there in front of the net, without any forwards coming back for puck support.)
-Not enough activation of the defense to skate it out themselves. This forces opposing backcheckers to cheat a little to accommodate and creates a little more space for the forwards.
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I'm not sure earning 1 less point would be considered a weak second half.
Games 1-51 = Pre All Star Game
33-13-5 = .696 points percentage = 114 point pace
Games 52-82 = Post All Star Game
17-12-2 = .613 points percentage = 101 point pace
The Flames after the all star game were slightly below their pace before it. However, 101 points would have still been enough points to be the Western Conference's #1 seed in the playoffs. It would have been the best season Calgary had since 2005-06.
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It’s not one thing, but as Craig Button said last night, they’re basically a 2 line team, and 2 line teams don’t win consistently. They’ve got a bottom five or six forwards that are playing at AHL level. Some are badly under-achieving (Bennet, Jankowski), some are just not NHLers any more (e.g. Lucic, Frolik, Reider). None of the additions this season are as good as the departed Hathaway, but the others have obviously deteriorated.
Bottom six is playing better than the top six
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I'm not sure earning 1 less point would be considered a weak second half.
Games 1-51 = Pre All Star Game
33-13-5 = .696 points percentage = 114 point pace
Games 52-82 = Post All Star Game
17-12-2 = .613 points percentage = 101 point pace
The Flames after the all star game were slightly below their pace before it. However, 101 points would have still been enough points to be the Western Conference's #1 seed in the playoffs. It would have been the best season Calgary had since 2005-06.
Thanks.
Maybe not team as a whole but certain players absolutely had weaker finishes than their starts. Still does nothing to change my mind. Confidence is shot.
It’s not one thing, but as Craig Button said last night, they’re basically a 2 line team, and 2 line teams don’t win consistently. They’ve got a bottom five or six forwards that are playing at AHL level. Some are badly under-achieving (Bennet, Jankowski), some are just not NHLers any more (e.g. Lucic, Frolik, Reider). None of the additions this season are as good as the departed Hathaway, but the others have obviously deteriorated.
The top line is not one of the 2 lines that looks good.
Definitely Gaudreau playing almost exclusively outside the dots and with predictability. While he's never been one to camp in the slot or crash-and-bang the crease, his danger was always created off forcing defenders high and into uncomfortable switches, manipulating defenders' feet, creative slip passes, forcing lateral movement between the dots and distributing the puck into space.
This season he almost exclusively drives wide and button-hooks for the trailer, or drives low and tries a poor-angle shot. Previously he had the double- or triple-threat of button-hooking and hitting the trailer or driving laterally and into the middle into the home plate area; driving low and hitting a teammate moving into space with an against-the-grain pass or skating behind the net to cause havoc; crossing the blueline and immediately moving laterally drawing defenders with him and creating false gaps.
Predictability is the hallmark of average forwards. Gaudreau needs to get back to his confident and deceptive ways.
Aside from him, everyone else has been more or less as expected in evaluating all-around play not solely counting metrics. He is the large outlier for me.
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To me if you want to talk about the difference, it's that gaudreau is not attacking the defense and forcing them to commit to an option.
They can sit back and angle him to the boards and there's no fear he's going to burn them by going somewhere they ain't.
I don't think it's a case of being figured out or any other kind of cliche you can think of, it's the guy has lost his mojo and isn't doing the things that made him so dangerous last year.
His greatest skill IMO is pulling one or more defending players away from their assignments and then making a pass to the player that finds themselves open as a result:
Last edited by Flash Walken; 11-21-2019 at 02:29 PM.
Definitely Gaudreau playing almost exclusively outside the dots and with predictability. While he's never been one to camp in the slot or crash-and-bang the crease, his danger was always created off forcing defenders high and into uncomfortable switches, manipulating defenders' feet, creative slip passes, forcing lateral movement between the dots and distributing the puck into space.
This season he almost exclusively drives wide and button-hooks for the trailer, or drives low and tries a poor-angle shot. Previously he had the double- or triple-threat of button-hooking and hitting the trailer or driving laterally and into the middle into the home plate area; driving low and hitting a teammate moving into space with an against-the-grain pass or skating behind the net to cause havoc; crossing the blueline and immediately moving laterally drawing defenders with him and creating false gaps.
Predictability is the hallmark of average forwards. Gaudreau needs to get back to his confident and deceptive ways.
Aside from him, everyone else has been more or less as expected in evaluating all-around play not solely counting metrics. He is the large outlier for me.
I do think this particular aspect is less on Gaudreau and more on the breakout/transition system itself. He definitely needs to adapt himself, but the Flames need to adjust overall.
You see it from wingers on other lines too, but the only difference being that Gaudreau will actually try to make a play (the buttonhook predictable as the sun rising) over trying to stickhandle right through the dman (annoying trademark Bennett toedrag) or throwing it blindly into the corner (everyone else on the team).
A lot of it has to do with the reasons mentioned above regarding the breakout, but the rest is how the team handles neutral zone transitions after. Particularly the whole schtick with forwards straddling the blue line scratching their asses and having no impact on the play whatsoever.
To me, unless you need to tip it into the corner for a line change, there is ZERO reason for any forwards to be standing still on the opposing blueline before the puck carrier enters the zone. They're not going to beat a defenceman to a dump-in and they're too slow to be a part of any passing play.
This problem is more pronounced with Gaudreau. This is because of two things:
-He's ALWAYS the puck carrier on zone entries if his line is on the ice.
-He's ALWAYS bringing it in on the left side in a straight line
-Much harder to retrieve a dump in when he carries, because he's usually the first one in the zone with speed and by then it's a last resort option.
-Being double-teamed so that the lateral option is gone.
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-Johnny had his soul stolen
-Monahan is too worried about two-way play to score
-Gio looks like the opposite of 'young & fresh'
-Backlund and Frolik angered a witch and now can't hit the broad side of a barn
-Jankowski decided to play like a bust
-Rittich wants to play the puck like Smitty
Systems Stuff
-Too much rimming it around the boards when we have the o-zone and team is not built for this style of play. Perhaps a symptomatic effect from not enough players attacking the center of the ice, instead waiting on the opposite half wall for the high D to funnel it back to them. It ends up looking very much like Gulutzan hockey.
-Everyone's shooting like it's junior hockey, which is to say... looking up, picking your spot. That one extra second doesn't seem like much, until after "oops it got knocked off my stick/deflected/blocked and now I have to skate all the way back up ice". Get it off your stick quicker.
-First forward backchecker often seems to be late to the party (see Lucic's postgame comments). No puck support for D means a lot of lost puck battles / more odd man rushes than necessary.
-When defense has control of the puck they are making the outlet pass 100% of the time instead of trying to skate it out themselves. Or, when they have one forechecker standing in front of the net to cut them off as they try to skate it out, have one forward swing behind the net to pick it up with speed. (I don't know why they forgot about this as a breakout option. Too many times I see one of our D with the puck behind the net and a forechecker just waiting there in front of the net, without any forwards coming back for puck support.)
-Not enough activation of the defense to skate it out themselves. This forces opposing backcheckers to cheat a little to accommodate and creates a little more space for the forwards.
I think that a lot of these issues can be generalized as poor confidence. Forced passes, tentative defence and poor shot selection are are a symptom of not trusting yourself or your teammates.
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^one of the real puzzling elements has been poor passing. He's been pretty good at going tape to tape in his career, and now even when he has a clear lane its often in the feet, or slightly ahead of the player.
Just bad play in almost every respect.
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Last year, injecting talented young players like Hanifin, Rittich and Lindholm, plus a sparky guy like Ryan, and new coach, gave the team a lot of energy. But then after being totally owned by the Avs in the playoffs, it sucked the swagger out of them. With virtually the same team this season, some of the key players seem jaded like they are just there to punch the clock. They seem to be lacking the extra gear they had last season.
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