2014-15 Flames Scoring Chances

As far back as I can remember, and I’m getting up there, we’ve collected and analyzed scoring chance data here at FlamesNation. Now that we’ve had time to dissect all the data we had for zone entries, we figured we might as well review what we had for scoring chances.

A note: our data has proven to be nearly identical to War On Ice’s data and with the web tool we use to manually collect scoring chances being discontinued, we’ve decided to go with War On Ice’s for this analysis. They differentiate a bit more between types of scoring chances and their data is a bit more detailed because it’s not hand-collected. Lucky buggers.

The historic definition of a “scoring chance” has been a shot attempt – blocked, on-net or that missed the net – taken from within the “home plate” area shown below.

War On Ice’s definition is more complex, but arguably a bit more nuanced. They break the ice into three zones (graphic via War On Ice): low-danger (yellow), medium-danger (red) and high-danger (blue) as shown below.

And now, their definition:

Click over to their site for a bit more on the hows and whys of their definition. Again, we’re using their numbers, so this way we’re all singing from the same song-book, so to speak.

And unlike the zone entry data, which was for both even-strength and power-play situations but was only for the regular season, scoring chance data is for the regular season and playoffs but is even-strength only.

The data differentiates between “individual” chances – those created by a particular player – and “on-ice” chances – those created when a player is on the ice. To correct for differences in ice-time, we also included looks at the “Per 60 Minutes” numbers, which are rates over a set period of ice-time. And to correct for any number of differences, some categories are limited to “Regulars” – anybody who played in 40 or more of Calgary’s 93 games this past season.

Which Flames players were on the ice for the most scoring chances or created the most? This won’t shock you, but it’s mostly who you’d guess would be.

Sean Monahan 176, Johnny Gaudreau 148, Jiri Hudler 136, David Jones 126, Mikael Backlund 111

Dennis Wideman 751, T.J. Brodie 738, Kris Russell 703, Johnny Gaudreau 578, Sean Monahan 577

Raphael Diaz 269, Brandon Bollig 284, Markus Granlund 294, Paul Byron 305, Curtis Glencross 340

David Jones 70, Sean Monahan 69, Johnny Gaudreau 61, Lance Bouma 60, Jiri Hudler 58

MOST ON-ICE HIGH-DANGER SCORING CHANCES FOR:

T.J. Brodie 425, Dennis Wideman 419, Kris Russell 391, Johnny Gaudreau 326, Sean Monahan 321

Raphael Diaz 173, Paul Byron 175, Brandon Bollig 178, Curtis Glencross 182, Markus Granlund 182

Mark Giordano 49.8%, Josh Jooris 49.4%, Paul Byron 47.6%, Raphael Diaz 47.3%, Mikael Backlund 47.2%

Mark Giordano 49.0%, Matt Stajan 48.6%, David Jones 48.4%, Mikael Backlund 47.8%, Josh Jooris 47.8%

Johnny Gaudreau 27.5, Jiri Hudler 26.6, Josh Jooris 26.0, Dennis Wideman 26.0, Sean Monahan 25.7

Raphael Diaz 25.8, Mark Giordano 26.0, Josh Jooris 26.6, Paul Byron 27.0, Mikael Backlund 27.6

As with the strong players, the guys that struggle in terms of their scoring chance metrics are largely the guys you would have expected. You’ll see a bit of Monahan and Gaudreau here, but bear in mind that they played some tough minutes – particularly Monahan – during the meat of the season. And you will also see many defensemen in these tallies, because defenders typically don’t generate a lot of scoring chances.

Raphael Diaz 21, Deryk Engelland 27, Kris Russell 48, Mark Giordano 59, Paul Byron 61

Brandon Bollig 200, Markus Granlund 232, Raphael Diaz 241, Paul Byron 277, Curtis Glencross 278

Dennis Wideman 963, Kris Russell 954, T.J. Brodie 836, Sean Monahan 719, Johnny Gaudreau 655

Raphael Diaz 2, Deryk Engelland 2, Kris Russell 5, Mark Giordano 11, Dennis Wideman 16

Brandon Bollig 103, Markus Granlund 140, Paul Byron 148, Raphael Diaz 152, Curtis Glencross 169

Dennis Wideman 565, Kris Russell 562, T.J. Brodie 487, Sean Monahan 426, Johnny Gaudreau 381

Deryk Engelland 41.1%, Brandon Bollig 41.3%, Mason Raymond 42.3%, Kris Russell 42.4%, Lance Bouma 43.2%

Brandon Bollig 36.7%, Mason Raymond 40.0%, Kris Russell 41.0%, Deryk Engelland 42.2%, Dennis Wideman 42.6%

Brandon Bollig 20.1, Deryk Engelland 20.5, Joe Colborne 21.6, Lance Bouma 23.0, Raphael Diaz 23.2

Kris Russell 33.3, Dennis Wideman 33.3, Mason Raymond 32.3, Sean Monahan 32.1, Johnny Gaudreau 31.2

For the most part, these numbers presented data that supported what we mostly thought they would. The guys that did the best in terms of scoring chance creation were your offensively-oriented players on the top line. I’m impressed at how well Micheal Ferland and Sam Bennett did in scoring chance creation and suppression, though their samples need to be larger for me to have confidence in the numbers overall.

In terms of those who struggled, it was mostly the bottom-six players such as Colborne, Raymond and Bollig, as well as the defensemen that weren’t Giordano or Brodie. It’s also notable that while Mikael Backlund and Lance Bouma ended up against the same basic quality of competition throughout the season, Backlund’s scoring chance numbers were miles ahead of Bouma’s. Markus Granlund and Paul Byron did worse than I expected they would considering the offensive numbers they produced this season.

In terms of the Flames’ off-season additions, they seem to be fairly smart acquisitions in the context of scoring chances – albeit in different areas of the ice. Dougie Hamilton was Boston’s best regular defenseman in the area of chance generation, and was about middle of the pack in terms of preventing scoring chances. When you consider that he and Zdeno Chara faced the toughest match-ups on their club, that’s a great sign. Michael Frolik was middle of the pack among Jets forwards in terms of chance generation, but he was one of their better forwards when it came to not allowing a lot of scoring chances.