Just Another Tale Ending in Tears and Shinpads

Yes, Iginla ‘chirps’ too much. He lacks the honor and integrity of Alex Burrows.
Iginla doesn’t escape blameless here- Sutter can’t exactly get Nik Backstrom (WAS), Malkin, Thornton etc very easily in a capped league. At the end of the day, he had Huselius and Tanguay ‘fail’ on his wing, and Jokinen + Langkow ‘fail’ as his centre (other than that magical run in December/January 07-08 when Iginla approached Keenan with regards to playing with Huselius and Langkow). Jokinen seems to be proven as a rather lackluster player, and its fair to say none of Langkow, Tanguay, or Huselius have exceeded the production they hit while on Iggy’s line. Unfortunately for Jarome, though, is when you make 7M a year, you damn well better put the team on your shoulders every so often and carry the load, because when you make that much money, he’s gotta realize at some point he is holding the GM back from landing a player who can finally ‘mesh’ with himself, since nothing has worked so far. Your cap hit/salary has to be indicative of production when a cap is in place in order to be successful. Does Iginla deserve all of the blame? No, of course not. But when you make more money than Henrik Sedin, you better outproduce him.

Also, WTF do you mean “balls to the wall” coaching style by Sutter? Trying hard? That’s what is to be expected, IMO. What is the other option? Being so skilled that you can pack the effort in some nights and still win? The Canucks certainly aren’t in that boat. Nor are the Capitals, Devils, Sharks, or Blackhawks. They need a consistent effort every night to win, just like the Flames need to maintain.

I understand where you are coming from, but the Flames’ issues stem from places other than their ‘balls to the wall’ coaching style, and Iginla’s lack of a ‘true number one centre.’ Its not like the Flames are in dire straits like the Oilers here- teams just sometimes need to regroup and reconsider their approach.

Next time the Canucks go on a little losing streak, though, I’ll be sure to pop by NucksMisconduct and offer my two cents. What were you guys saying last year when you went on that massive skid at the beginning of 2009?
-Luongo is awful and injury prone
-Sedins are soft
-Sundin was a brutal pick up
-Burrows and Kesler chirp too much
But hey, you guys somehow managed to get your act together and look what happened – you still won the division!
I know that this is a great time to be a Canuck fan, but spare us your ‘expert, unbiased opinion’ from an outsiders perspective. Enjoy seeing us lose just as much as we love to see the Canucks fail, but just leave it at that.

There are a lot of issues at play. Do they emphasize movement and passing as a team? If not, why not? This is straight observational stuff, but when we discuss the Flames, the phrase, “great passing team” isn’t often thrown around. That can be both a specific skill issue within the player group, and a choice of emphasis by the coaches. You only have so much time to practice, so working on that sort of skill may not be the priority item.

I did look at Washington this morning, and they have a ridiculous number of blocks against, 669 in 2330 attempts. Of course, when you shoot 10% at EV, that makes a lot of things moot, but as I noted in the piece, the Eastern Conference has a different vibe about it. I don’t think the the Flames’ skill level matches Washington’s, of course. There’s only so much difference I’ll ascribe to quality of competition.

D’oh!. I completely forgot to post that part. Thanks, KW. At home, the Flames get 28.0% (315/1127) of their shots blocked, which is just over 3 SD away from the mean. For those unaware, when data that’s normally distributed, 68 percent of the data usually falls within 1 SD, 95 percent within 2 SD, and 99.7% falls within 3 SD of the mean.

Nope. He’d cost more than the Flames have to offer in trade – and more than they’d have to sign in the summer.

Also, Kovalchuk’s stats are pumped by his circumstances – last night he played 11 minutes at ES and a mind boggling 12 minutes on the PP. That’s how you get production out of Kovie, because he ain’t going to do too much otherwise.

Basically, he’s a better version of Olli Jokinen. He can help teams win games, as long as they very carefully manage his ice time. That’s not something you should have to do with a very expensive contract (as we’re learning this year) – because in order to manage a guy like that properly, you have to fill your club with other players capable of doing all the other heavy lifting.

Plus, let’s face it – the Sutter’s would have no use for Kovalchuk.

Bruce, I’m currently on a break at work, and I don’t have the spreadsheet at my fingertips, but Phaneuf’s block/attempt % was north of 34, IIRC. I don’t disagree with your defenceman premise off the top of my head, either, but that’s what looking at the actual numbers is for. I’m also going, at some juncture, to have a look at whether teams that have the highest proportion of EV shots from the D are in the group of teams with the lowest shot/Corsi ratio.

As for the computing chops, I’m really good at copying Vic’s data into a spreadsheet. Beyond that, things get a bit dicier ;-)