Flames at Coyotes fancy stats recap: The game was as lovely as Karri Ramo

“…And the Calgary Flames are outshooting the Arizona Coyotes, 13-3.” Some variation of those words were said upon the first period’s end. And if it wasn’t already obvious to you that the Flames were very much in control of the game, then those numbers just cemented it. Even if the Flames weren’t yet leading on the scoreboard, they were controlling the game handily. And that’s exactly what you want to see.

After all, who knows when the Flames are going to play a team with their own Karri Ramo? Score effects certainly played their part, but in the Flames’ first dominating 30 minutes, they were only up by one. Of course, they were later rewarded for their efforts with a few more goals once the Coyotes started taking over. HockeyStats.ca:

The Flames were in control for a very large portion of the game, but the Coyotes, down a goal early in the second, eventually started working to catch up. Just when they did catch the Flames in shot attempts, though, Calgary pulled away with a second goal. And then a third. You can see them flatline shortly after, as the Coyotes officially entered "oh shit oh shit we gotta score NOW OH SHIT" mode.

Not that it did them any good, but it never hurts to at least try.

Period by period breakdown via NaturalStatTrick:

Flames at Coyotes - All Situations

Flames at Coyotes - Even Strength

Flames Even Strength Data

• The Flames had 26 blocked shots to the Coyotes’ 18 (eight of which belonged to Michael Stone), so a couple of guys have better fenwick numbers: most notably Michael Ferland and Markus Granlund, who were under in corsi, but team leaders when you exclude blocked shots. They only had two blocks between them, and both were Ferland’s.
• Check out their zone starts, too. The kids, along with Paul Byron, did a pretty good job.
• I honestly don’t think we’re far away from the “is TJ Brodie better than Mark Giordano?” conversation. Gio may be getting more points, but TJ’s worked his way back in the conversation in that avenue. Both are unquestionably the team’s best players, what with handling the toughest competition and burying them all the while primarily starting in your own zone thing, but Brodie did have the noticeably better game of the two.
• And of course, Johnny Gaudreau was absolutely amazing. Jiri Hudler was great as well.
• And how about Josh Jooris? The J-line. Jooris was lighter on ice time than the other two, and wasn’t as strong a factor, but he handled himself very well in this one.
• That’s quite the gap between defence partners Kris Russell and Dennis Wideman. They were only apart for about three to five minutes. Apparently that helped cause a big difference in their possession stats, because Russell looks like he fared pretty well, but Wideman… eesh.
• The Swiss kids, Sven Baertschi and Rafa Diaz, did not have particularly great games.
• Neither did Brandon Bollig and Deryk Engelland, but that’s hardly a surprise at this point.
• Sean Monahan really dropped off. He faced good, but not the best, competition in this one. Still, in just 100 games, Monahan has become the Flames’ most frequently played forward and only non-injured centre with what you could call “NHL experience”. He’s been great this season and has improved by leaps and bounds, but lacking games are gonna happen no matter what. He’s still only 20, and sometimes 20-year-olds struggle.

by Ari Yanover