Fixing the Flames Corsi - The Quest for 50 Percent

Throughout the season the Flames possession numbers have been discussed in quite a fair amount of detail. The Flames are currently the third worst team in the league in Corsi percentage and really haven't improved much throughout the season. They've fortunately been able to rely on a high shooting percentage. The fact that they have had the highest penalty differential in the league hasn't hurt either. The result has been a team that's been good enough to be fourth in the Pacific Division and in control of their own playoff fate even though they've been quite streaky throughout the season.

All this is well and good, but how difficult would it be to get the Flames up to 50 percent? What changes would need to be made to the roster? Looking at the Corsi data gives a clear idea as to who is mostly responsible for the poor possession numbers. Note that this is the difference between the team's total Corsi and not relative Corsi.

There's nothing there that's all that surprising. Shore and Knight have been great, but in the tiniest of sample sizes. At the bottom there are guys that have really dragged the team down, most notably Granlund who didn't look ready in his time in Calgary and may never be ready based on what the data shows. Does this mean that these players are the ones who have affected the Flames the most in terms of possession? To study that, it's better to take the Corsi +/- and adjust the without numbers by the time on ice with.

Looking at those who have affected the Flames with their play by volume of minutes played gives a clearer idea as to which individuals have hurt or helped the team the most. As expected, Giordano and Brodie are at the top of the list, but the surprise would be that the pairing of Russell and Wideman negate about one half of those gains. Expanding upon that, there are eight guys that drag down the possession numbers by 40 or more attempts while the rest are under 20.

The question then becomes how to negate the impact that these players have upon the team by minimizing their minutes played. As it stands, the Flames currently sit at 2118.9 Corsi attempts for and 2607.7 against for a -488.8 and a 44.8 percent Corsi for. Taking a look at what would need to be done to help fix that, a huge negative on the possession numbers has already been corrected with the swap from Granlund's minutes going to Backlund.

Adding 1.49 percent in a single swoop is a pretty good improvement, but there's still more that can be done. The defense might be hard to fix because the Flames don't have much of anything in the pipeline, but there's plenty that can be done to the forwards. Colborne has a large amount of minutes and terrible possession numbers. They're on par with Bollig's, but actually hurt the team more because of the volume of minutes he receives. Those minutes could be replaced with Setoguchi's who's much better possession wise (though doesn't carry the score effects).

That's an increase of .56 percent which isn't bad, but obviously not the level of increase that the Granlund and Backlund swap brought. In addition to that, Setoguchi has far too many minutes now. His previous minutes could be relocated to Jooris to bump him up a bit. and also add some possession.

That barely moved the needle, but at least Devin Setoguchi isn't getting around 578 minutes. Jooris has been a bit of a possession carrier for the Flames and every little increase helps on the quest to 50 percent. There's still plenty of work to be done however. Brandon Bollig has been a possession sieve just like Colborne and his minutes need to go somewhere. His numbers could be added to Baertschi's to improve the numbers.

That added a little over half a percent on to the Flames possession numbers bringing them up to 47.48 percent so things are getting warmer, but that still leaves a lot of ground to the 50 percent goal and the possession nightmares are mostly used up as far as forwards are concerned. There are enough moves that can be made to help improve them. For the next demonstration, Stajan's minutes will be swapped with Bouma's.

An increase in .31 percent isn't terrible. It definitely puts the Flames closer to the 48 percent mark, but there's still ground to be made up. Jones has been a pleasant surprise for the Flames and his numbers can be increased. Glencross has been less stellar. Their minutes can be swapped to once again give a boost to the team. It's not a huge change, but it's an improvement.

Again, this was only a tiny increase designed to put Jones and Glencross closer to where they each belong. The increase is only .03 percent so it's hardly a necessary change and now the available moves are starting to get few and far between. The final move that will be made with the forwards is to switch Monahan with Hudler.

That move is about the last that can be made and doesn't even break 48 percent. A swapping of Gaudreau with Byron could be made, but it probably isn't worth splitting up Gaudreau and Hudler together as a pair. Moving on to the defense there's not a lot that can be done, but the first one to try would be the switching of Diaz and Wideman.

That's actually not a bad increase with the swap. .39 percent pulls the Flames up to over 48 percent and the team is getting warmer to the 50 percent goal. Russell is technically a wee bit worse than Wideman in the Corsi category, but in the interest of keeping (or putting) Diaz on his natural right hand side Wideman will be swapped instead. Now it's down to the wire as the only real swap that can be performed are with Engelland's minutes. Is it enough to put the Flames over the top?

There were many moves to be made, but unfortunately the quest for 50 percent comes up just short. Ultimately the team would have to make quite a few moves to re-arrange the rosters just to get close to that number. The lines would look a little something like this should the team rearrange the roster as previously mentioned:

Forward Scale
Left Wing																				Center																				Right Wing
Johnny Gaudreau																				Mikael Backlund																				Jiri Hudler
G/1230				A/1230				P/1230				CFRel				OZRel				G/1230				A/1230				P/1230				CFRel				OZRel				G/1230				A/1230				P/1230				CFRel				OZRel
14.20				24.84				39.04				+1.7%				+15.0%				15.33				26.83				42.16				+4.2%				+0.6%				16.35				27.26				43.61				+3.2%				+11.8%
David Jones																				Sean Monahan																				Paul Byron
G/1230				A/1230				P/1230				CFRel				OZRel				G/1230				A/1230				P/1230				CFRel				OZRel				G/1230				A/1230				P/1230				CFRel				OZRel
15.69				22.41				38.09				+0.8%				-8.4%				14.12				14.12				28.24				+1.3%				-4.3%				9.61				15.37				24.98				+2.5%				-4.8%
Sven Baertschi																				Josh Jooris																				Curtis Glencross
G/1230				A/1230				P/1230				CFRel				OZRel				G/1230				A/1230				P/1230				CFRel				OZRel				G/1230				A/1230				P/1230				CFRel				OZRel
0.00				35.78				35.78				+0.8%				+5.8%				12.69				12.69				25.38				0.0%				+3.7%				9.92				19.83				29.75				+0.4%				-9.7%
Mason Raymond																				Matt Stajan																				Devin Setoguchi
G/1230				A/1230				P/1230				CFRel				OZRel				G/1230				A/1230				P/1230				CFRel				OZRel				G/1230				A/1230				P/1230				CFRel				OZRel
28.84				9.61				38.46				-1.6%				+8.2%				10.28				13.70				23.98				+0.2%				-14.2%				0.00				0.00				0.00				+2.4%				+3.6%
Defense Scale
Left Defence																														Right Defense
Mark Giordano																														T.J. Brodie
G/1640						A/1640						P/1640						CFRel						OZRel						G/1640						A/1640						P/1640						CFRel						OZRel
6.65						28.28						34.93						+4.8%						-7.4%						6.44						16.11						22.55						+3.9%						-7.6%
Kris Russell																														Raphael Diaz
G/1640						A/1640						P/1640						CFRel						OZRel						G/1640						A/1640						P/1640						CFRel						OZRel
1.72						13.75						15.46						-2.4%						+8.7%						0.00						9.64						9.64						-0.3%						+7.4%
Ladislav Smid																														Dennis Wideman
G/1640						A/1640						P/1640						CFRel						OZRel						G/1640						A/1640						P/1640						CFRel						OZRel
0.00						4.13						4.13						-3.4%						-6.2%						10.22						13.63						23.85						-2.2%						+5.3%
Goalies
Jonas Hiller
Karri Ramo
All Data Five on Five Score Adjusted																														Data from War-On-Ice.com
Includes Top 450 Forwards in Minutes																														Includes top 240 Defensemen in Minutes

If the roster was rebalanced, it would likely only take a number four defenseman to balance out the possession numbers and break the 50 percent mark. There'd be plenty of pieces left over and some people would likely wind up down in the A.H.L. with some hefty contracts or perhaps they could be used to acquire that defenseman that would be required. The team would hardly be an offensive juggernaut, but it would be worth evaluating the change to the lineup.