Black Box: Week 3
12 years ago
Every Monday we’ll be posting a weekly statistical update on how the Flames have fared with each of their individual players on the ice. We’ve included a dash of interpretive analysis, and links to more detailed explanations for what the stats mean, and how to avoid Don Cherry-ing their application. Raw stats, courtesy Behind the Net, minus Kent Wilson’s scoring chances.
OZQoC Charts (explanation)
(Note – the further the right, the tougher the zone start position. The further up, the harder the quality of competition)
For some reason Coach Sutter is still matching the Iginla/Tanguay/Whoever line against top opponents, even in their own zone, and reserving the softest minutes for their fastest two-way line of Stempniak/Jokinen/Glencross. In ice cream terms, it’s like Jokinen’s line is getting that soft McDonald’s-like stuff, and Iginla’s is getting the really frozen stuff out of the box that you have to dunk the scoop in warm water just to scrape off a little bit for your pie.
Amazingly, the toughest minutes are being played by rookie Roman Horak! He has the lowest offensive zone start and the highest Quality of Competition, so prepare for some disappointing numbers this week. The other five Flame forwards facing above-average competition are (in order) David Moss, Lee Stempniak, Tim Jackman, Jarome Iginla and Alex Tanguay, but at least the first two often get to start in the opposing zone, and the last two make more in a month than I will in my entire life.
On defense the Jay Bouwmeester/Chris Butler pair undeniably has it the toughest, so expect the Scott Hannan/Mark Giordano pairing to post better numbers.
Even-Strength Scoring (explanation)
The numbers are going to be slightly off due to losing the scoring chance data for the Montreal Canadiens victory, but the effect should slowly disappear over time. All data is now being displayed as rates over 60 minutes, so you can see (for example) that while the Flames enjoy 65 attempted shots (aka Corsi) per 60 minutes with either of Lee Stempniak or Jay Bouwmeester on the ice, more of them get translated into scoring chances with Stempniak (19) than Jay Bo (14). Of course, that is likely a temporary consequence of the small sample sizes. Or Kent has the hots for Stempniak.
Player ESP/60 CEF CEA CE% SCF SCA SC% GF GA G% Lee Stempniak 2.0 65 47 57.7% 19 14 57.1% 3.33 3.33 50.0% Olli Jokinen 2.5 65 48 57.7% 17 12 57.4% 3.11 3.11 50.0% Curtis Glencross 1.9 62 47 56.8% 15 12 57.1% 2.58 3.23 44.4% Chris Butler 0.5 62 48 56.7% 14 15 48.2% 3.13 2.61 54.5% Jay Bouwmeester 0.5 65 50 56.5% 14 16 46.0% 2.87 1.92 59.9% David Moss 1.5 58 46 55.9% 9 15 37.5% 1.54 1.54 50.0% Derek Smith 0.0 54 43 55.3% 8 10 45.0% 0.86 2.59 24.9% Matt Stajan 0.9 55 45 54.9% 11 10 52.2% 2.69 2.69 50.0% Brendan Morrison 0.0 53 45 53.9% 14 14 50.0% 0.00 0.00 0.0% Tim Jackman 0.0 49 42 53.8% 7 10 40.0% 0.00 3.42 0.0% Tom Kostopoulos 0.0 50 45 52.8% 11 5 66.7% 0.00 1.31 0.0% Scott Hannan 1.6 49 44 52.7% 12 10 52.5% 1.64 1.64 50.0% Jarome Iginla 0.5 58 53 52.2% 12 15 44.0% 1.58 2.11 42.8% Alex Tanguay 2.5 58 55 51.1% 13 16 45.7% 2.50 2.50 50.0% Mark Giordano 0.5 53 51 51.0% 12 10 53.7% 2.15 1.61 57.2% Rene Bourque 1.4 51 49 50.7% 10 11 48.3% 2.14 2.85 42.9% Cory Sarich 0.7 45 51 47.2% 7 5 58.8% 0.66 2.66 19.9% Niklas Hagman 1.7 46 53 46.2% 8 10 42.9% 2.53 0.00 100.0% Roman Horak 1.2 36 60 37.7% 5 6 44.4% 1.24 1.24 50.0% Anton Babchuk 2.1 41 78 34.4% 12 18 40.0% 2.05 2.05 50.0% P-L. Leblond 0.0 61 0 N/A 0 0 N/A 0.00 0.00 0.0%
You can see the numbers starting to come closer together now – at least the Corsi events and the scoring chances, that is (goal scoring may take a while to line up). You can also see that the Flames have really been controlling the play, only a few of them are below-water possession-wise (Sarich, Hagman, Horak and “Blub blub” Babchuk). Teams that are trailing tend to have better possession numbers because the team in the lead tends to sit back and dump it in, so you can counter-intuitively expect these possession numbers to drop as the team improves.
Despite their tough assignment, Jay Bouwmeester and Chris Butler have enjoyed the greatest territorial advantage of all Flames defensemen. Unfortunately that hasn’t translated into an edge in scoring chances, but it has with goals – Mark Giordano and Niklas Hagman are the only other Flames with a positive even-strength goal differential.
Up front the Stempniak/Jokinen/Glencross line have taken advantage of their McDonald’s ice cream assignments by dominating even-strength play by any measuring except goals, where they’re even.
Special teams (explanation)
Anton “Blub blub” Babchuk’s poor even-strength play has kept the Flames top power play performer in the press box, which is quite unfortunate give how much their top players are struggling with the man advantage.
Player TOI/GP PTS/60 CE/60 Anton Babchuk 1.5 0.0 139.3 Jay Bouwmeester 1.7 5.1 106.4 David Moss 1.5 0.0 96.9 Chris Butler 1.0 8.4 84.1 Brendan Morrison 1.7 0.0 82.1 Olli Jokinen 3.2 2.7 80.4 Niklas Hagman 1.6 6.4 77.3 Jarome Iginla 3.6 4.8 68.9 Lee Stempniak 2.1 0.0 68.5 Rene Bourque 3.2 2.7 61.0 Alex Tanguay 4.4 5.9 60.8 Mark Giordano 4.1 4.2 58.6 Roman Horak 0.5 0.0 46.4
Sutter’s top choices Alex Tanguay, Mark Giordano, Jarome Iginla and Rene Bourque are all failing to control the play and generate shots with the man advantage – only Olli Jokinen appears to be enjoying much success at all. Though their better numbers might be more a consequence of playing secondary penalty killers, the Flames might want to experiment with Jay Bouwmeester, David Moss and Brendan Morrison if things don’t improve.
They seem to have it right when killing penalties, however – the top units are definitely pulling their weight.
Player TOI/GP CE/60 Jay Bouwmeester 3.3 98.2 Chris Butler 2.8 91.9 Scott Hannan 2.7 107.6 Mark Giordano 2.5 91.4 Curtis Glencross 2.2 72.7 Rene Bourque 2.0 88.3 Lee Stempniak 1.9 106.5 David Moss 1.8 110.4 Tom Kostopoulos 1.6 138.9 Brendan Morrison 1.3 45.6 Roman Horak 1.2 99.4 Cory Sarich 0.7 180.6 Matt Stajan 0.7 159.2
I figured a cap team like the Flames always need to have someone to help carry the bags, drive the bus and clean the dressing room, which is why they always seem to have players with names like Higgins. This year they were even more obvious by getting a guy whose name is actually Butler. However, Chris Butler has been a pleasant surprise killing penalties along side Jay Bouwmeester, which takes some of the pressure off Mark Giordano and Scott Hannan.
Up front Rene Bourque and Curtis Glencross are still their top penalty killers, though it will be interesting to see how Brendan Morrison and Roman Horak fare as they take more opportunities away from David Moss and Lee Stempniak (to Kent’s potential chagrin).
Goaltending (explanation)
If Calgary is to make the play-offs then they need strong goaltending – they aren’t one of those teams that can get by with below-average netminding. So far Kipper and the Calgary Tower (should he really be named after something that doesn’t move?) have put up just 2 Quality Starts out of 7, which could really hurt the club should it continue.
Goalie GS QS QS% ESSV% Miikka Kiprusoff 5 2 40.0% .913 Henrik Karlsson 2 0 0.0% .897
In fairness, Henrik Karlsson was literally a couple of seconds away from a Quality Start, and Kipper’s had two near misses as well, so it would only take a very slight improvement to go from 2-for-7 to 5-for-7.
And that’s how it looks after two weeks. A slow start in the standings, but definite cause for hope as their luck improves, especially with some improvements in nets and with the man advantage.
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