A Tale of Two Cities: Flames/Canucks Scoring Chances

Last week’s pair of games between Vancouver and Calgary were good times, as they provided a chance to see Sam Bennett against (mostly) NHL rosters and test his mettle. Additionally, the nice folks at Sportsnet televised the games, which also provided a nice chance to get a training camp edition of Scoring Chances going. (The Hockeyviille game was also televised, but there weren’t any NHL reports – “real” stats reporting takes five guys and three computers, so I’m not shocked that the 900-seat arena in Sylvan Lake couldn’t support it.)

Beware: Calgary iced a good roster against Vancouver’s B-team at home, while Vancouver’s A-listers faced Calgary’s Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time-Players at Rogers Arena.

“Shockingly,” Giordano and Brodie were chance-generating beasts. Also in the black: Bennett, Arnold, Ferland, Agostino, Baertschi, Monahan and Bouma. Basically everyone else was even or worse, including Diaz, Cundari, Wideman and Culkin. If this sounds similar to, well, the entirety of last season, you’ve obviously been paying attention.

This gap between Agostino and many others in terms of chance generation is why I was surprised he got sent down. That said, he didn’t score and he’s played maybe three weeks of pro hockey, so the AHL is where he belongs.

Given the opposition, expectations were lower in Vancouver on Friday, especially as the Flames were finishing off a rough three-in-thre strech. Wanna know why Culkin was still in town? This may be an indicator. It’s also an indicator why some bodies did get sent down immediately after that game.

But hey, Sam Bennett? Monster. Second straight night he was one of Calgary’s better chance-generating players. And Calgary’s PK was pretty bad at supressing shots from the scoring chance area. No shocker that all three Canucks goals came with the extra man.

The young AHL defenders may be (slightly) better than we think, and Sam Bennett is (based on two games) about as good as we’ve been led to believe by the proverbial “eye test.” But remember – sample sizes are key and this is just two games in the pre-season, so don’t take any of this without a hefty amount of salt.

We should have a quick look at zone entry data from these two games later in the week.