Goal scoring projections - Math only.

I plugged the last 5 years goal scoring totals for the Flames top 6 forwards in to Excel and had it draw the trendline and projected in to this season . It's just for info  - I know the game is played on the ice and not in Excel; but it's interesting to look at the numbers.

First the good news.

Iginla - owing to his 50 goal campaign of a couple of years ago - the linear trend line says  he will be up 3 goals to 35 for this year.

Hagman  - from a low of 8 goals in 05-06 up to 27 goals 3 years ago, gives the line a strong slope upwards, even with a dip to 22  2 years ago - gives a projection of 31.

Bourque -  a dip in  06-07 then strong growth brings the trendline right back to the 27 he got last year.

So far, so good. Read on if you want the bad news and the not quite so bad news.

Jokinen - His 38 and 39 goal campaigns put his trendline at the highest start point - so the falloff is ugly and the trendline says 14 for this year.

Langkow - Starts slightly lower than Olli and has a shallower slope - but ends up in the same spot for 10-11 at 14.

Tanguay - The trendline and the actual line are almost identical from 29 goals 5 years ago to 10 last year - that is real  bad news because it then ends at 6 for 10-11.

That's 128 from your top 6. Ok, but not world beaters.

The next 5 forwards plus 3 defenseman  I did a 4 year trend on , since some  had limited data and it looks like this

Stajan 22

White 16

Glencross 14

Moss 13

Kotalik 13

Giordano 8

Conroy 5

Bouwmeester 5.

96 from that group - bringing you to 224 - which actually sounds not too bad and within 5 goals of the shooting percentage projection that Robert did on Flames Nation.