Halfway there - does anyone know where we are going ?

by PrairieStew on Jan 6, 2011 1:34 AM PST

We've hit the mid season mark and the Flames still occupy 14th spot in the West. That doesn't sound good but the 8th spot is not running away, just 6 points out of reach and 4th place only 8 points away.

8th place is looking like 93 points presently so 54 points in 41 games is neccesary.

An analysis of the schedule and indvidual report cards follow.

The fact that the Flames sit outside of a playoff spot today can be directly linked to their record against the weaker teams in the league. With 16 of 26 games completed against the potential cellar dwellers the Flames have only 17 points. just barely a .500 record. 3 losses to Minnesota, one each to Edmonton, Columbus, Florida and the Islanders are all ones that got away. Even 2 more wins out of these 7 losses and things would look much better.

Only one game left with the Wild and the Blue Jackets, those are critical, as are the 3 left vs Anaheim. I had projected 36 points as required from this group which means they need to get 19 of the remaining 20 points or play better against tougher comps. .

The mid range group of teams, Calgary has 8 points in 6 games with 12 yet to play against St Louis, Nashville, Phoenix, Dallas, plus one each with Carolina and Toronto. Continuing a winning record against this group would go a long way to staying in the race. The projection was 25 points in 20 total games, so 17 points in 14 games is neccesary, probably more to compensate for the wasted points against the low rent district.

Against the top teams, the Flames are also short of the pace they need. I had only projected a record of 0.444 in 36 games (32 points) as neccesary - assuming the easier 2 groups came through With 14 pts in 19 games, another 18 is required in the final 17 games. Becoming Vancouver's nemesis would be great, with 4 more yet to play against them.

Player Grades

Alex Tanguay 17 pts in the first quarter, 14 in the second, on pace for 20-40-60; excellent value for his contract.

Mark Giordano -leads the defence in every measure except hits. Again excellent value.

Tim Jackman - Solid play and contribution in limited role and has even improved as the season has gone on.

B-

Jarome Iginla - continues to put up numbers at or near his career average. At times his line gets eaten up by oppositions' best units though.

Robyn Regehr - blocks shots and hits guys. Plus 6 on a team that is minus.

C+

Cory Sarich - Are you suprised as I am to see that he leads the team at plus 8 ?

Jay Bouwmeester - Best 20 games he's had in Flames togs. Need that and more to be full value for contract.

Miikka Kiprusoff - 9-7 this quarter, save percentage only .905 compared to last years .920. .

David Moss – recent play very good leading the 4th line - can he maintain it ?

Brendan Morrison –15 points in the first quarter, only 5 in the second. Not hurting the team, but not leading the likes of Bourque or Hagman out of their slumps either.

Mikael Backlund - Inexplicably benched despite consistent and improving play.

C-

Olli Jokinen – Has improved slightly, but still on pace for a fourth consecutive yearly decline in shots and points, while 16 goals would be one more than last year,it is hardly the 'bounce back" that we were hoping for.

Henrik Karlsson – A slight upgrade from the D I gave in quarter one. 1-2-2 in 5 starts with a 2.11 GAA this quarter, best we've seen from a backup in a long while.

Rene Bourque - only 4 goals this quarter. Invisible on many nights. Not proving new contract worth

Adam Pardy - Not a minus player, despite being saddled with Babchuk most nights

Niklas Hagman - Another disappearing act since the end of November with only 2 goals

Tom Kostopoulos - not being fooled by recent "hot streak" - 0 points in 17 games during this quarter.

Matt Stajan - benched, which motivated him for the Toronto game. Pointless in 10 of last 12. Not good since he doesn't bring much else.

Curtis Glencross - another guy that has tanked with only one assist in his last 16 games.

Anton Babchuk - Has put up some points, but not enough to make up for his defensive deficiencies.

Craig Conroy - Can't do much from the pressbox.

Raitis Ivanans – A waste of a roster spot.

Steve Staios - $2.7 million

Ales Kotalik - 1 goal .$3m. One more year.

Overall

On pace to score a little more than last years 201 goals , but only slightly. 22nd in the league in goals per game, 25th in shooting percentage. Outshooting the opposition by nearly 3 shots per game.

A 2.79 GAA is only good for 18th, a long fall from 2.45 GAA for 6th for the entire year last season. The positive is they are allowing fewer shots, 2372 total allowed last season, and are on pace for just under 2300 this year. Both goalies statistically better in the second quarter; perhaps this standing will continue to improve, but 25th in overall sv % is not good enough.

25th in PP% (15.1), 23rd on the PK (79.3), plus 2 more SH goals allowed than for. That combination makes for 27th best special teams totals.

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Wow. We really suck.

The 4th Line Blog
Go Flames Go

by Justin Azevedo on Jan 6, 2011 11:01 AM PST reply actions 1 recs

Yes we do

And despite all of that, when we said we’d know by the New Year for sure; we still don’t know. Win 4 of 5 and you are back close again. It’s like a season long trip to the dentist sans Novocaine.

by PrairieStew on Jan 6, 2011 6:20 PM PST up reply actions

The impression I had of the season was that our outshooting was largely a function of being behind and chasing so often. I was over at Objective NHL though and noted this post. It shows the Flames are a net positive Corsi or Fenwick team at EV. Note however the .985 PDO. The EV SV% at .916 is not tearing up the league, but the EV S% at .063 is tied for third worst (lower than us the Devils and Bruins. The Bruins PDO goes up because Thomas has been ridonkulous.)

While normally positive possession stats and crappy EV S% should indicate this team is in for a correction. But I have watched at least 75% of the games – and I totally don’t see it turning around.

by CalTach on Jan 6, 2011 11:46 AM PST reply actions

It’s totally possible we get screwed with the percentages for the 2nd year in a row-COL’s stupid high PDO, EVSV% & EVSH% last year and now our stupid low PDO & EVSV%. Are the Flames somehow creating bad luck for themselves?

The 4th Line Blog
Go Flames Go

by Justin Azevedo on Jan 6, 2011 12:25 PM PST up reply actions

Bad luck or bad shots?

Despite massively outshooting the Canucks last night they didn’t outchance them by the same margin. The shooting percentage is low because they are taking low percentage shots. This could be broken down in to 3 reasons.

1 Bad shooters (Glencross)
2 Bad choices of when to shoot (Jokinen)
3 Can’t get to scoring areas with the puck. Stajan, Jokinen, Hagman, Kotalik etc

by PrairieStew on Jan 6, 2011 6:24 PM PST up reply actions

That is how I see it to. The Flames are piss poor at converting possession into scoring chances. They are also bad at converting scoring chances into goals, but I see that as more a function of luck. Converting possession to scoring chances is problematic for the Flames because they can’t make or receive a pass, constantly stick handle the puck into inescapable positions and have no player with enough speed and skill to back the opposition off. As a result, the opposition knows they can be aggressive checking the Flames, and the aggression never results in the Flames opening up space for a scoring chance.

It makes watching the games painful as hell.

by CalTach on Jan 7, 2011 8:30 AM PST up reply actions

Yeah the media & management try to portray games as if they had a lot of great chances but couldn’t score. It’s incredibly frustrating because realistically, the Flames manage to get a bunch of perimeter shots with no chance of going in. The root issue is that we are lacking true skill to capitalize on real scoring chances & we don’t have enough grit so we don’t score enough garbage goals.

by dotfras on Jan 9, 2011 1:07 PM PST up reply actions

What’s your grade on Coaching/Management/Ownership? ;)

by dotfras on Jan 6, 2011 3:31 PM PST reply actions

Management – is a D

F for the overall approach – I said last summer no amount of spit or duct tape was going to get this group to be a Cup contender with the core they have so it was time to blow it up before it was too late. It may now be too late.

C for the moves – the carry over of the Kotalik and Staios contracts are bad marks. The signing of Stajan and Bourque were good moves, despite maybe overpaying a bit for both. Unfortunately both guys have been brutal the last month, which doesn’t help. The return of Jokinen is a c minus move, but it makes some limited sense if you buy in to the initial approach in the first place. Tanguay, Morisson and Jackman good moves, Ivanins over anybody a disaster. White trade a further watering down of the soup.

Coaching has to be a D as well. Terrible on special teams. Inexplicable use of your best prospect. Pairing of the weakest 2 defencemen repeatedly. How is it possible that so many guys ( Hagman, Bourque, Stajan, Glencross, Kotalik) can be in such awful slumps all at the same time ?? Can’t anyone find any traction with this system ?

Ownership – once Darryl set the direction for this year I said he’d have until Christmas – and if they were not strongly in a playoff position then, he’d be toast. So I give them a C plus – for loyalty and for waiting until after the Holiday to can him , unlike the Devils who fired John Maclean less than a week before Christmas.( why ? you’ve already missed the playoffs)

by PrairieStew on Jan 6, 2011 6:39 PM PST up reply actions

Have to think we are headed downwards

the length (in years) for the fall will be dictated by how soon they start the rebuild.

by brisulph on Jan 11, 2011 5:35 AM PST reply actions

What, if any, process do you use to get the grades?

Is it totally your “gut feel”?

I don’t find the explanations after the name all that helpful. For example: Conroy – “D”… not playing.??? Is that why he gets a “d”?

Or Bourque “D” – not proving contract worth. Actually… he is at contract value. He’s the 30th highest scoring LW in the league (first line rate) and he’s the 29th highest paid LW in the league. He has his problems, but is value one of them?

Pardy and Babchuk “D” – cause they play with each other???

Not sure I get it.

by LawrenceS on Jan 11, 2011 9:14 AM PST reply actions

A little bit of qualitative yes. Expectations and salary play in to it as well.

Conroy – he played quite alot and pretty well in the first quarter, which is why he was a C from me at Q1. Pretty hard to give him much credit since however. I didn’t think that he was brought back just to get to 1000 games, but it is looking increasingly like that was the case. If you want to lay it at the feet of the coaching staff, I’m Ok with that – or give him an incomplete.

Bourque – I look at his $3.3 cap hit and think that is decent value at his current production, however it is a 6 year deal for 29 year old and you have to think they gave him term at the expense of salary. If it’s a 3 or 4 year deal he’s probably asking for 4.5 or more. You need to have guys playing over their contract value – especially early their deals, because you will have guys under that value later in their terms. Also – Rene’s goal stats look Ok, but he is a big minus and he has just not had many memorable games.I expected him to be challenging Iggy as the best player. Would you not agree that he needs to be much better and we have seen much better from him?

Pardy and Babchuk – I could not find any compelling reason to rank them any higher. I’m not real comfortable when they are out there. The team is in 14th in the West – roughly a c minus based on expectations, I had already given a C or better to 11 players, so there were’nt many marks left to give Would you rank them higher ?

by PrairieStew on Jan 11, 2011 2:29 PM PST up reply actions

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