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The least sensical game ever. Flames @ Avs Stat Recap:

The score was 6-3, but some abnormally bad luck played a part in that.

Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports
Corsi Charts:

As always, via hockeystats.ca

All situations:

There are two issues here:

1. As I have said for only God knows how long, the Flames keep letting their opponents take control late in the game when they really don't need that to happen.

2. Colorado is one of the worst corsi teams, and not just in regards to this season. They're on pace to be the seventh worse corsi team ever since the stat has been tracked (2005-06), coming in between the 2012-13 Edmonton Oilers and 2013-14 Edmonton Oilers. Playing a game this close to them, and only winning the corsi battle due to late game shot attempts is slightly concerning.

5v5

Okay this looks slightly better, though Colorado is on track to be the second worst team ever at 5v5 corsi.

Fenwick charts:

Also from hockeystats.ca

If you need a crash course on Fenwick, it's basically corsi minus blocked shots. The Avalanche blocked 30 shots tonight, while the Flames only blocked six. This is incredibly rare, considering that corsi and Fenwick are often closely correlated. The Avalanche haven't discovered some secret shotblocking system, as this is the only time they've been over 55% FF this season. Colorado is at a league worst 44.3 FF% at 5v5, and they've only been over 50% one other time.

Basically, this means that the Avalanche successfully blocked about 25% more shots than they usually do (if my math is right), which is rare and unlucky for the Flames.

Shot plots:

Via war-on-ice.com

Goals are in red. Misses are in black. Blocks are in green. Saves are in blue. Rush attempts are larger and italicized. Rebound attempts are larger.

Goodness, look at all that green in the Avalanche zone! Good on the Flames for generating all those chances, but also wow. They literally blocked everything they could.

Now if you look at the Flames, they mostly held the Avalanche out of the home plate area, but struggled to keep them out of high danger area. As you can clearly see, that's where the Avs made the difference. As a trend, the Flames aren't struggling in that area (49.3 HDSCF%, around the middle of the pack), but it'd be nice if they could cut that down.

Individual corsi table:

Stats from naturalstattrick.com

CF% All OZS% All CF% EV OZS% EV
TJ Brodie 62.79% 45.45% 64.10% 55.56%
Michael Frolik 60.47% 40.00% 63.41% 44.44%
Josh Jooris 59.38% 14.29% 67.86% 25.00%
Sam Bennett 58.54% 64.29% 56.41% 64.29%
Kris Russell 56.76% 41.67% 60.00% 45.45%
Johnny Gaudreau 56.10% 75.00% 58.33% 66.67%
Deryk Engelland 56.00% 75.00% 58.33% 100.00%
Mikael Backlund 53.85% 75.00% 58.33% 100.00%
Dougie Hamilton 52.63% 75.00% 50.00% 75.00%
Matt Stajan 51.85% 0.00% 60.87% 0.00%
David Jones 51.52% 66.67% 48.39% 66.67%
Mason Raymond 50.00% 100.00% 50.00% 100.00%
Jiri Hudler 48.39% 77.78% 50.00% 66.67%
Dennis Wideman 46.43% 66.67% 51.06% 63.64%
Joe Colborne 44.74% 63.64% 42.86% 63.64%
Mark Giordano 42.11% 56.25% 46.81% 60.00%
Sean Monahan 41.18% 77.78% 42.86% 66.67%
Brandon Bollig 40.00% 100.00% 40.00% 100.00%

The Good:

  • TJ Brodie is purely wonderful.
  • Michael Frolik also had a hell of a game. He was pretty questionable up until the Edmonton game with some poor possession results, but now it looks like he has finally settled. Hopefully, that will continue.
  • Jooris and Bennett. Also wonderful.
  • Matt Stajan was perhaps one of the least noticeable Flames out there, but he did great work despite his crappy starting positions.

The Bad:

  • Breaking up Russell and Wideman works wonders... for Russell. Wideman still needs to figure out his niche. He dragged down almost everyone on the roster, save for Backlund, Jooris, Hamilton, and Raymond, but they all spent less than three minutes with him. From this, you could say that Wideman and Hamilton should go together, but what are the odds Hartley tries this?

The Ugly:

  • Brandon Bollig is still ass.
Statistical anomaly of the night:

Despite all of the goals called back, Colorado magically blocking every shot, Karri Ramo being terrible, and all of the other general weirdness that worked against the Flames, they still came out on the lucky side of 5v5 PDO at 103.1. I'm not sure hockey makes sense anymore.

Up next:

The Flames face the Flyers, who are having their own set of corsi problems. Surely, nothing will go wrong this time?