Black Box: Week 26
12 years ago
When you’re a play-off bubble team whose top lines can’t quite compete with opposing teams, you rely on catching a few breaks in order to qualify for the post-season. If instead your team loses 5.5 points on the random OT/shoot-out chance, and are among the league leaders in man-games lost to injury, then you need to build a far better team to be playing hockey in mid-April.
Here’s the current status of the race, according to three separate sites each using slightly different statistical models. Phoenix and Los Angeles are practically in, with San Jose and Dallas in a dead heat for that final spot.
Team 1 2 3 Phoenix 91% 93% 89% Los Angeles 88% 90% 84% San Jose 62% 62% 62% Dallas 54% 49% 54% Colorado 6% 5% 11%
OZQoC Charts (explanation)
Our little OZQoC Charts have really taken off this year. Fifteen separate team fan sites around the league have adopted them since we first introduced them over at Arctic Ice Hockey this summer.
Even-Strength Scoring (explanation)
22.8% of Calgary’s on-ice attempted shots result in scoring chances with David Moss on the ice, compared with 37.0% with Alex Tanguay. It would be an interesting study to determine if this difference is persistent from season to season.
Top-Six Forward ESP/60 CEF CEA CE% SCF SCA SC% GF GA G% David Moss 1.5 57 50 53.4% 13 16 45.5% 1.79 2.28 44.0% Mikael Backlund 0.9 53 50 51.6% 16 14 51.7% 1.57 2.92 35.0% Mike Cammalleri 1.8 49 55 47.4% 17 21 45.2% 2.37 2.91 44.9% Curtis Glencross 2.1 49 57 46.3% 14 18 44.3% 2.62 3.38 43.7% Alex Tanguay 2.0 49 58 45.5% 18 17 51.1% 2.85 2.44 53.9% Olli Jokinen 1.8 49 58 45.5% 15 19 44.7% 2.85 3.21 47.0% Jarome Iginla 2.1 49 60 44.8% 16 19 46.6% 2.69 2.92 48.0%
Lee Stempniak had a solid season, and could arguably be a top-six forward on some of the league’s weaker teams. On Calgary he’s a useful and low-cost utility forward – let’s see what kind of contract he’ll get July 1st.
3rd Line Forward ESP/60 CEF CEA CE% SCF SCA SC% GF GA G% Lee Stempniak 1.6 54 50 52.0% 16 14 52.3% 2.26 2.58 46.7% Blake Comeau 0.8 50 51 49.9% 13 15 46.4% 1.20 2.08 36.6% Matt Stajan 1.3 51 51 49.8% 13 14 48.8% 1.71 2.42 41.4% Blair Jones 0.8 47 52 47.3% 17 17 50.0% 0.93 1.54 37.7% Roman Horak 1.1 41 51 44.7% 12 11 51.6% 1.85 1.54 54.6% Lance Bouma 0.8 43 55 43.5% 12 12 50.5% 0.75 2.01 27.2%
With the return to something resembling full health there were mot a lot of opportunities for depth talent this week – only Tim Jackman and Tom Kostopoulos saw action, which they performed in their usual adequate form, save for the Colorado game where, joined by Blair Jones, they were easily Calgary’s top line.
Depth Forward ESP/60 CEF CEA CE% SCF SCA SC% GF GA G% Krys Kolanos 0.5 54 49 52.5% 11 10 53.7% 1.04 1.57 39.8% Greg Nemisz 0.0 44 43 50.5% 10 11 48.0% 2.61 1.74 60.0% Tim Jackman 0.7 50 50 50.0% 11 12 47.9% 0.75 2.54 22.8% Tom Kostopoulos 0.6 50 53 48.4% 12 13 48.1% 1.41 2.54 35.7% G. Desbiens 0.0 34 45 43.0% 7 7 50.0% 0.00 0.84 0.0% P-L. Leblond 0.0 46 58 43.9% 8 12 40.0% 4.16 0.00 100.0% Paul Byron 1.1 35 51 41.1% 11 11 51.3% 1.63 0.54 75.1% Sven Baertshi 3.5 31 48 38.8% 12 15 43.5% 3.52 1.17 75.1% Raitis Ivanans 0.0 27 65 29.4% 5 27 16.7% 0.00 5.41 0.0%
The Flames simply won’t score with Jay Bouwmeester on the ice. They get the shots, they get the chances, but do not get the goals. If only the team scored as easily with Bouwmeester on the ice (3.8% of attempted shots, 12.5% of scoring chances) as opponents do with Scott Hannan on the ice (5.3% of attempted shots, 16.9% of scoring chances).
Top-4 Defense ESP/60 CEF CEA CE% SCF SCA SC% GF GA G% Mark Giordano 0.8 49 55 47.0% 14 16 45.6% 2.44 2.50 49.4% Chris Butler 0.6 49 57 46.2% 16 18 47.4% 2.19 2.50 46.7% Jay Bouwmeester 0.5 48 56 45.9% 15 17 46.2% 1.82 2.47 42.4% Scott Hannan 0.5 45 57 44.3% 13 18 42.7% 2.29 3.00 43.3%
Great week for the depth defensemen – Clay Wilson, Cory Sarich and Anton Babchuk. Granted their ice-time is soft, but they all did very well, which comes as a surprise in all but one case.
Depth Defense ESP/60 CEF CEA CE% SCF SCA SC% GF GA G% Brett Carson 0.0 70 41 63.4% 19 11 63.6% 0.00 5.41 0.0% Clay Wilson 0.0 49 44 52.9% 14 12 54.2% 1.09 1.09 50.0% T.J. Brodie 0.6 50 47 51.5% 15 13 53.3% 2.40 2.02 54.3% Cory Sarich 0.4 49 48 50.3% 13 12 51.9% 1.70 1.84 48.0% Derek Smith 0.6 49 53 48.1% 15 13 53.5% 2.00 2.27 46.8% Anton Babchuk 1.0 50 55 47.6% 12 15 44.7% 1.88 1.88 50.0% Joe Piskula 0.0 50 59 45.9% 19 14 56.7% 0.00 5.54 0.0%
Special teams (explanation)
A good week on the power play – finally some power play points for Mike Cammalleri, and a boost for Olli Jokinen and Jarome Iginla.
Primary Forwards TOI/GP PTS/60 CE/60 Mike Cammalleri 3.0 3.2 92.9 Alex Tanguay 3.1 4.5 81.0 Olli Jokinen 3.0 5.9 80.7 Jarome Iginla 3.3 4.4 80.3
If Olli Jokinen is going to retain his team power play scoring rate crown for yet another season, he’s going to have to hold off Curtis Glencross, who is trailing by only 0.09 points per 60 minutes despite the team’s inability to generate shots while he’s on the ice.
Secondary Forwards TOI/GP PTS/60 CE/60 Mikael Backlund 1.1 3.9 85.0 David Moss 0.9 0.0 84.9 Lee Stempniak 1.8 2.8 84.2 Blair Jones 0.7 2.1 75.0 Blake Comeau 0.7 0.0 70.1 Krys Kolanos 1.0 0.0 68.4 Curtis Glencross 2.1 5.9 68.4
Anton Babchuk got some serious power play ice-time, and while his personal scoring rate is low, the team has done well whenever he’s served with the man advantage. It’s odd that they didn’t use Clay Wilson with the man advantage this week.
Defensemen TOI/GP PTS/60 CE/60 Clay Wilson 1.9 0.0 131.0 Anton Babchuk 2.4 1.7 101.7 Chris Butler 0.7 3.7 81.8 Jay Bouwmeester 2.2 3.4 81.2 Mark Giordano 3.3 3.1 77.8 T.J. Brodie 1.7 3.9 68.0 Derek Smith 1.0 5.1 65.8
Penalty killing
Calgary has a lot of usable penalty killers, and tends to spread out the opportunities rather than lean on a small handful of specialists like most teams.
Primary Forwards TOI/GP CE/60 Lee Stempniak 1.5 75.9 Blake Comeau 1.3 79.7 Curtis Glencross 2.1 84.0 Alex Tanguay 1.3 88.7 Tom Kostopoulos 1.4 89.6 David Moss 1.4 103.4
The Flames got peppered this week in limited penalty-killing action with Blair Jones on the ice.
Depth Forwards TOI/GP CE/60 Mike Cammalleri 0.6 68.7 Mikael Backlund 1.0 90.5 Olli Jokinen 0.4 93.4 Blair Jones 0.6 97.0 Matt Stajan 1.0 114.6 Lance Bouma 0.4 128.3
There maybe a dozen teams that exclusively use two-way defensemen in their front-four, all of whom can be trusted killing penalties – and Calgary is one of them.
Defensemen TOI/GP CE/60 Scott Hannan 2.7 84.9 Mark Giordano 2.0 88.4 Jay Bouwmeester 3.1 92.5 Chris Butler 2.2 92.7 Cory Sarich 0.8 97.7
Goaltending (explanation)
A rare off-week for Miikka Kiprusoff, who went 1-for-3 in Quality Starts. Henrik Karlsson missed his 2nd Quality Start of the season by only a couple shots (or by only 62 seconds) in the OT loss to the Canucks – a bad break in what was certainly a quality start to the subjective eye.
Goalie GS QS QS% ESSV% Miikka Kiprusoff 67 41 61.2% .927 Leland Irving 7 5 71.4% .911 Henrik Karlsson 6 1 16.7% .905
Obviously next week’s Black Box will be the final edition for this year, and I’d like to thank you in advance for following it throughout its inaugural season. We’ve obviously got some work to do this off-season to find ways to make this simpler and more accessible next year, and appreciate any suggestions you might leave for us in the comments.
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