Statistical Summarization — CGY @ FLA

The Flames dominating a game and actually getting a result that mirrored their effort, I’m not used to that. (Stats at 5v5 SVA) In 52:43 the Flames popped off a team stat line of 60.41 CF%, 62.08 SCF%, 69.2 HDCF%, & 57.99 xGF%. They’ve done this against teams like the Red Wings and the Senators before, and if I recall the Oilers once, but doing it against another team in a desperate playoff race was a welcome sight. 11 of the next 15 are home games so relying on the strong road record is over, and they need to figure out some things at home.

Corsi King – Dillon Dube (81.52%) must have heard me diminishing his play on Twitter because he killed it along with Derek Ryan (80.74) and Milan Lucic (Rocket Loochard 80.71%). Mark Giordano (67.30) was back to his Norris calibre self as the whole team really clicked as a unit.

Corsi Clown – Someone has got to be the “worst” and you’d hope that’s always your 4th line, which in this case it was. Toby Rieder (41.04), Sam Bennett (41.05%), and Mark Jankowski (42.70%) still played 11 mins at 5v5. I wonder if those numbers would be lower with Rinaldo playing? No wait, I don’t wonder that, I know they would be. No D-men are classified in Clown territory as they were all > 50%.

Taken By Chance – 86.51% for the entire line of Lucic – Ryan – Dube. They needed this after playing very sup-par hockey for over 2+ weeks. Top line of Johnny – Mony – Lindy got outchanced in retrospect of all chances, but were able to create a higher rate of high-danger opportunities than their opponents with all of them being greater than 72% in HDCF%. 

xGF% – Lucic (83.46%), Ryan (82.84%), and Dube (81.12) again, top of this games leaderboard. TJ Brodie played really well too, getting 66.91% of xGF%. The solid play from this small sample size of our new look D has been very positive by my eye test. After 7-10 games i’ll do an article looking at the performance post trade to evaluate the individual number as well as the teams, look out for it! The worst in xGF% will be highlighted lower in the Player Spotlight section.

Game Flow – 

Florida’s in a very tight playoff with the Leafs, are they not? If that doesn’t motivate you to show up and play then you don’t deserve to score any goals. Flames controlled everything and just kept the momentum from about ¹⁄₂ way into the first onward.

Game Score – Would Cam Talbot (2.88) and his shutout be enough to take the GS crown? NOPE. Mark Giordano (4.15) blew past him with an absolute dominant monster of a performance. A three assist performance can do that for you. Shoutout to Johnny Gaudreau (2.03), who despite subpar games analytically from his linemates still came out with a very good performance all around. Our hearts are with you Johnny. Only the 4th line had negative scores with Mark Jankowski (-0.26) being the low rung of the totem pole.

Shot Heatmap – 

Sean Tierney @ChartingHockey just tweeted out a viz showing that over the last 25 games no team has generated the quality the Flames have generated. Ever since I wrote that Ward article i’ve been critical of this system, but lately it’s been working so I can’t hark on it. Did a lot better getting in close than they did in Tampa, a welcome bounce back performance.

In The Crease – Zero goals against is obviously a perfect effort from Talbot, and i was just curious how relatively busy he actually was. Did he have to put in any real hard work? Well the Panthers generated 5 high-danger chances at 5v5 to the Flames 8, so not terribly busy but got the job done. My vote is to go back to Talbot the next game, he’s strung together a few very good games and Rittich getting some rest wouldn’t be a terrible thing.

Player Spotlight – Elias Lindholm – Buddy, where’d you go this game. He was the Flames worst performer, but we’ll give him a pass as he has 15 points in his last 15 games. (Backlund thinks that’s cute). 46.32 CF%, 34.10 xGF%, 35.40 SCF%, & then he goes and has a 72.11 HDCF%. Honestly, it wasn’t his best game. I miss our high flying, high scoring system from last year, but if this defensive, conservative outlook the teams employing works in the post-season i won’t care. Calgary has better underlying systemic metrics than Vancouver, Edmonton, and Arizona so if they can get into the dance they could make more noise than you’d expect them too, Here’s hoping Lindholm doesn’t lay a game like this in a playoff match.

Flashalytic’s 3 Stars – 

HM: Derek Ryan who played just as good as Lucic and Dube.

(All stats compiled from NaturalStatTrick.com // Game Score from HockeyStatCards.com) // For all Q’s and inquiries see @Flash_33 on Twitter.

by Shane Stevenson