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Flames vs Canucks – Self Immolation Time (Stats Recap)

I'm not sure that even if they won against Dallas, that they would have won against Vancouver last night. B2B against a team fighting to end a losing streak as well as being a much better team overall was a situation you don't expect to come out on top of at this point.

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I'll be honest. I wasn't going to watch the game live last night; I had friends over and was playing some Smash Bros. I was going to sit down later last night, watch the game on GCL, and then do this recap. THEN SOMETHING MAGICAL HAPPENED. My phone blew up with chatter of the Flames doing the most Calgary thing ever this season. Then the texts came in. I derailed my evening with friends to see that the Flames scored on themselves.

Joy, pure joy rushed through my body. Followed by vomit filling anxiety, rage, bargaining, and acceptance. It's almost like I was at the doctors and they told me I had like 5 months to live. My friends sensing that I needed to watch this game went home and I was left to pick up the shambles of my evening to see the Flames sorta maybe basically come back but lose in OT.

That coupled with the Giordano missed shot in OT that lead to Chris Tanev's goal may have created the most memorable game of this season for us to reflect on. I'm sure in a few years when we've all drank ourselves silly countless times over last night's game we'll be able to talk about it with kander. Or we'll have war flashbacks and be unable to cope with existence. I still did go back and watch the period after – it beautiful.

Enough of me rambling about the existentialist crisis that this sport causes me, let's talk about those ol' fancy stats shall we?

Courtesy of the ever-amazing Greg Sinclair, his dog Chewy, and HockeyStats.ca

Flames vs Canucks – Corsi (All Situations)

Flames vs Canucks – Corsi (5v5 Situations)

Flames vs Canucks – Fenwick (5v5 situations)

  • Just a quick note here on the Fenwick chart and examining some positives from this perspective. Halfway through the second period, the Flames were noticeably a better team in regards to it than the Canucks.
  • Finding better shooting lanes and getting shots on Ryan Miller is the obvious eye-test itself, but leading the way in that stretch was David Jones and Mason Raymond stand out here. Jones had 3 Fenwick-related shot attempts while Raymond had 2. Nothing substantial but still better than the team.

Courtesy of our pals at NaturalStatTrick, we have the period by period charts and Flames ES possession data.

Flames vs Canucks – Even Strength

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Flames vs Canucks – All Situations

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  • The penalty kill in full use justifies what we see here along with other non-5v5 play. That said, I’m thoroughly disappointed by the Flames inability to generate shot attempts with their power play. I fear that as it falls out of the top 10 in the league and further down we’ll see the offense dry up more.
  • That said, besides the Radim Vrbata goal, the PK wasn’t a trainwreck.

Calgary Flames – ES Corsi/Fenwick/Shot Data/Zone Starts

  • Mason Raymond was the fortunate Flame to “top” the good ol’ Corsi chart here. Playing predominantly with Sean Monahan at 7:37 TOI, followed by Paul Byron with 6:41 TOI, and finally Deryk Engelland (Seriously) at 5:11. He was the product of benefiting from play with Byron and Monahan while taking a hit with Engelland. Engelland would be a drag on Raymond,
  • With Byron, he was 80% CF/ 83.33% FF with 3 shots for and 1 against. Not bad for 6:41 together. With Monahan however, 84.62% CF / 85.71% FF with 4 shots for, 1 against. That said when on ice with both, they did primarily start 60% (Byron) and 66.67% (Monahan) of their zone starts in the offensive end. Away from the two, 50% CF / 33.33% FF (Byron) and 33.33% CF / 20% FF.
  • Going with Monahan next, I mean what can you say about this kid? He’s fighting as much as he can to produce, do little things, and drive possession. Another great night underlying wise, he had a few smart plays as well including forcing a turnover which didn’t go much further but his game is rounding out nicely. He’ll have his rough nights and his great nights like all kids.
  • The product of playing with Raymond and Byron much of the night as well as the second pairing of Kris Russell and Dennis Wideman; he was a better player away from Wideman and Russell at 40% CF / 28.57% FF (Wideman) and 46.67% CF / 36.36% FF (Russell) to 75% CF / 66.67% FF (away from Wideman), 81.82% CF / 75% FF. That said, Monahan had 33.33% OZS with Russell and 100% OZS with Wideman. You be the judge.
  • The Jiri Hudler and Johnny Hockey pairing continued playing with Monahan at times but primarily Josh Jooris. It had a rough night. Playing against noted shit-stain Kevin Bieksa and Ryan Stanton (some guy), they were around the 46.5% CF combined though their TOI against differentiated around 2 minutes TOI. Regardless, from there they matched up primarily against the Canucks’ second line and top line. They fared not swell with very comfortable zone starts.
  • Hartley has done a good job at times sheltering Gaudreau and it’s worked at times, last night however it was like seeing Monahan last season possession wise. He’s got so much upside and if his sophomore is anything like Monahan’s, it should be okay.
  • What I can guess is the the third line of David Jones (who scores and shoots lots when on the ice) and noted slow, abomination who has fallen out of favor with fans lately Curtis Glencross; who all flanked Markus Granlund through the possession drudges. The line wasn’t spectacular but Jones and Glencross did benefit the young centre who has seemingly fallen down the roster due to health and Jooris’ spot on the second line.
  • With Jones, Granlund was 50% CF / 52.94% FF. Without? 18.18% CF / 0% FF. Personally I’d love to see Granlund with Raymond and Jones for a game to see what the numbers looked like. I’d imagine we’d see a higher SF% and FF% than with Glencross.
  • Lance Bouma is an interesting fourth line gentleman. He’s a fan favourite, he blocks shots, he hits, he fights, and he’s everything the embodiment of that #GRITCHART fans love. Hell, even my friend has a crush on him. That said and if you push those qualities to the side, he’s not exactly the best driver at possession. Him on the bench at times benefits the team more than his “intangibles”.

Example:

The translation: When Lance is on the ice at 5v5, the Flames are 40.2%. The CF Rel portion? He's on the ice for at least 5 more shot attempts per 60 minutes of play at ES. While off, the Flames are a much better 47% CF team. Still, below 50% but better. He's not going to be a 30+ goal scorer, a guy who puts up 50+ points in a season, or anything of the sort. He's there to "shutdown" (if we can even use that term anymore) the opposition and play a physical game. I'm not sure what to make of him long-term but I do love watching him fall into benches.

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Player Spotlight: Kris Russell

Sometimes I have trouble understanding Kris Russell. Part of it is I think he is overvalued for what he is, which is a really good #5 defenseman who is playing in a second pairing role with a partner who can't play defense if his line depended on it. Often we see the Russell – Wideman pairing pinching, making risky decisions both in the offensive zone AND in their own zone. They can generate points but it's offset by their inability to dictate or at least manage a defensive zone situation.

So what do we do about it? I've been calling for this all season long to go out and find a better option for the pairing. Could Russell flourish with a bit less minutes and with say…Raphael Diaz? Probably. That would then slot and/or push out Deryk Engelland + Ladislav Smid *WINK WINK*. The other option is relegating Wideman to the bottom pairing, which won't help much. We have some pieces we could part with to make a trade or attempt something.

Russell does too much, I think it's his biggest weakness. Often he's called on to cover up Wideman mistakes leading to his own either by positioning or by taking a risk. That said, his deployment and match-ups need some serious work. Hartley can only be blamed so much for this as the organization has not provided the best line-up at times due to injury, bad contracts, or depth issues.

Last night is a prime example of this.

In summation, I think Russell could use his minutes cut down a bit once we find a better option on the second pairing. That or we teach both Wideman and him how to play defense properly. The live grenade handling of the puck by them scares me and I feel like they might be sleeper agents brought in to bring us a top 3 draft pick.

by Mike Pfeil