Statistical Summarization — CGY @ LAK

OKAY. I’ve calmed down from the fact that the Flames got owned by the team that sits 30th in the league standings. David Rittich was great in the first but the Flames defensive system collapsed on him and he let in 2 High danger chances and 2 medium danger chances. I want to rant about Geoff Ward some more, but I’m positive most people are getting tired of it. The Flames have to deal with the reality of the cards in their hand, and right now they need the river to turn up a good look or the table may make them fold. (As a team the Flames had 45.26 CF%, 43.48 SCF%, 47.83 HDCF%, and just 43.72% of xGF% — pretty pathetic)

Corsi King – After a couple down games Andrew Mangiapane (and his line) had a good showing. 58.62% led the team on the front end. Backlund and Tkachuk also finished above 50% as just 5/18 skaters did. What else could you expect from a game they hardly touched the puck (yet still had it 4-3 with under 5 mins to go, LA is that bad and we went 1-2-1 this year against them). The D leader will be highlighted in the player spotlight.

Corsi Clown – The victims of Corsi past, Mark Jankowski (20.00%) and Michael Stone (38.46%) c’mon down. Once again it’s your time to compete on the price is wrong. Stone more than Janko, really. With the injury to Giordano, I was prompted to take a good look at our defensive depth/prospects we have in the system. I was searching for something, anything really, that could be used as a counter option to actually giving Stone ice time. Let me tell you guys, it’s bleak, barren, and dark in the D pipeline. Trading draft picks this year will make me cringe.

Taken by Chance – The 4th line (Janko – Rieder – Rinaldo) had 0 chances for. ZERO. Since Ward likes to shuffle his lines all the damn time, get to it. You can’t have that against the LA KINGS. THEY HAVE 45 POINTS. Lucic and Dube also had sub 30% games, really i’m having a hard time finding positives here. In fact i’ve now at this moment decided to be negative. 

xG% – Janko had an xGF% of 2.15%.*pause for internal laughter that turns into tears*.Enough about the 4th line. Johnny Gaudreau seemed to be flying out there last night, so I was very curious about how his numbers turned out. Only 40.59%, which seems off to me, but then I remember this doesn’t count any PP time, just 5v5 impact.Solid 60%+ performance here from 3M-2.0, and a defender.

Game Flow – 

I call this “At least they made an effort before they let it collapse in under a minute”. Truly a masterpiece. The Kings have the same amount of points as the Red Wings, I believe, but don’t kid yourselves. This Flames team is no Bruins team. Anyways *insert award rant here and we move on.

Game Score – Mr. Mikael Backlund was the internal champion (3rd best score in the game) at 2.26. Again, boxscore stats (goals, assists) have an impact on game score. So you could get absolutely buried in your own zone, not have a majority of chances, and the ones you get have no quality behind them, but if you get a bad goal or a secondary assist it could still show you as having a “positive” impact. That’s why no one stat can be used to determine anything. Carefully assessing as much as you can and analyzing it to determine proper outcomes is essential. I’m wondering if the Flames even do this because they consistently roll out Michael Stone (-0.48 last night, -0.50 on average) and don’t try anything else. Anyways Sean Monahan was your loser last night at -1.91.

Shot Heatmap – 

The odd part of this is the high volume of 5v5 shots from below the circle to the right of the net. A shot from there must only constitute trying to get a rebound, but why? Try to do something with it instead of just throwing it at the net? I feel like the Flames are getting coached to play basic level PeeWee hockey some nights. Not a recipe for major success, and I hope they make me eat those words, but I really don’t believe they will.

Player Spotlight – Alexander Yelesin – I don’t envision Yelesin ever playing 100 games in the league, that’s happened to literally over 2000+ players in history. That’s fine, what he did last night in his first game was just be a good analytical defender on the roster. Here’s his stat line: 10.58 TOI @ 5v5, 55.56 CF%, 53.25 xGF%, 37.50 SCF%, 66.67 HDCF%. Now he didn’t make a single zone start in his defensive end, which maybe he should have based on all these crap numbers everyone else put up, but he didn’t need to to be a solid #6 Dman in his first NHL game. Congrats on making the show, good for you!

Flashylitical 3 Stars – 

The above 3 were the only F positive on all of xGF%, CF%, SCF%. They win, the rest of the team gets F’n laps.

(All stats compiled from NaturalStatTrick.com, Game score found at HockeyStatCards.com)

by Shane Stevenson