FlamesNation Mailbag: .500 and feeling fine

The Flames head into a three-day break, having vanquished one of the more potent NHL offences after a game where they flat out dominated their opponents for 60 minutes (despite some referees running interference).

It was one of the rare games where there was almost nothing the team did that you could complain about. For all the hand wringing and worrying early on in the season, last night’s game seems to be an example of what the Flames could be night-in, night-out. They weren’t considered a true contender by trusted Sportsbooks like Betonline, but last night, they looked like one.

With five more home games lined up for them, things are coming up Calgary. They also have Jaromir Jagr coming back, in case I forgot to mention that.

Even though things aren’t ideal right now, I feel the Flames are comfortable with their top six for the time being. It’s the only area of the roster that is scoring, so why mess with it?

The first domino to fall will be Jagr, whose absence in the roster is quite clear. Without Jagr, the Flames lost a scoring punch. Micheal Ferland has certainly stepped up on the first line, but we’ve seen this act before. There’s always the chance he slows down again. Not to mention that all scoring outside of the top six has been nonexistent. If Jagr can remain, well, Jaromir Jagr, then there really won’t be a need for a top six RW. You can put him up there, maybe move Ferland around (or vice versa), and eventually find a combo that sticks together.

But if Jagr does not remain Jaromir Jagr, what happens? Like I said last week, I can’t see a trade happening given how the team is structured. It’s really hard to move cap space out, and nearly impossible to offer someone a compelling draft pick. The team is going to have to hope the problems sort themselves out (which is likely) or that an AHLer could be a solution.

It will come. Sam Bennett seems to be more comfortable on the wing, and he’s come out firing since the position shift. Perhaps it’s just a good four games, perhaps it’s more. Time will tell.

However, I’m not sure how putting him lower in the rotation or off the ice is going to help the fact that he has no points. Those seem to be two contradictory solutions to the problem at hand. If you want Bennett to score, he’s going to have to be put in a position to succeed. Perhaps he hasn’t made the most of those positions (see: the first 12 games of this year) but further restricting his opportunities isn’t going to solve the problem.

I posted this tweet as a joke during the Dallas game, but it sums up my feelings on the topic:

At 5v5, the Flames are fifth in CF/60 and sixth in FF/60. They have no problem holding onto the puck, but they’re 12th in SF/60 (14th before last night’s game), suggesting that they have little clue what to do with it afterwards. Being 13th and 15th in scoring chances for/60 and HDSCF/60 reinforces this point (15th and 17th before last night). They can get the puck, keep it away from their opponents, but can’t drive to the net.

Shooting percentage is certainly a problem, as the Flames are the fifth worst shooting team at 5v5, so we can expect that number to rebound and the goals to come with it. However, unlike other low SH% teams like Montreal, Pittsburgh, or Nashville, the Flames aren’t all around dominating other teams. The pucks will bounce their way someday, but they could also do a bit more to improve that luck. They’re only 19th in xGF/60, suggesting that they could do much, much more.

From the eye test, it’s always the final fatal pass that kills any offensive hope. With the option of getting a shot or passing it off, the latter is always selected and I have no idea why. Even Glen Gulutzan has said that the team needs to shoot more often, but it’s strange why they don’t. Sometimes, it just comes down to simple things. We saw a difference against Washington. Through two periods last night, the team had 29 shots, and finished the game with 33 5v5 shots. Against Dallas, they had 30 total. The Flames didn’t have any powerplays through two last night, by the way.

Not a clue. I’m willing to guess “nothing” was actually the reason.

All coaches fall into this trap, but Gulutzan has this problem especially. The Flames didn’t win with Brett Kulak in the lineup. So, go back to Matt Bartkowski. It may not be Kulak’s fault they lost those games, but hey, something’s broke, might as well try something else. Kulak wasn’t particularly great in his three-game showing, but that certainly doesn’t mean Bartkowski has been better in the other eight games.

If anything, though, Kulak was better in that his rates were better. Neither he nor Bartkowski were positive possession players (the third pair is the third pair for a reason), but when Kulak is on the ice, he allows four fewer shot attempts against per hour and generates eight more shot attempts for per hour (sample size warning). Still in the negatives, but Kulak stops the bleeding at a greater rate than Bartkowski does. You can’t ask for perfection from your 5/6 d-men, but what Kulak is doing is good enough to keep him on the roster for the immediate future.

If it helps, Bartkowski has only played one of the last five games. Kulak’s game last night may see that trend continue.

Jagr’s injury has complicated things a bit. Once he comes back I feel we see a bit more stability, but for now, it’s kind of hard to be Gulutzan in this situation.

The initial plan was adding stability and success to the Bennett line, but he hasn’t been able to get going at all. Adding Jagr was done to give Sam a partner, but Ferland’s struggles in the early few games forced Gulutzan to push Jagr to Sean Monahan and Johnny Gaudreau. Now Kris Versteeg isn’t doing so great, either, so you have to figure out how to get him going, too. You also have Curtis Lazar hanging around to provide a boost, but he hasn’t proven to be successful no matter which line you put him on. Otherwise, you have Troy Brouwer (has not worked well with anyone), Matt Stajan (okay, but unlikely to solve anyone’s problem) or Tanner Glass (lol). And then Jagr gets injured, so you have to call up Mark Jankowski, hope he isn’t terrible, and throw the “Bennett at centre” plan in the trash can for the time being.

Basically, it’s hard to build roster stability in that scenario. You have a myriad of problems to deal with and the solutions aren’t solving anything. What are you going to do when everything stands to change by next week?

When Jagr’s healthy, I agree with the premise of staying put, especially because some of the non-3M lines have looked pretty good. Gaudreau-Monahan-Ferland is a 55.32 CF% line, but Gaudreau-Monahan-Jagr is a 60.87 CF% line (in 23 minutes). Vertseeg-Bennett-Jagr has a 58.82 CF%, but in only 16.82 5v5 minutes on the ice. If you can get things into gear by rolling Ferland with Monahan and Jagr with Bennett, great (Ferland’s performance recently seems to make this a doable option). If Jankowski gets to stick around, there’s a few more combos that could be used, although some quality names might get bumped to the fourth line.

But it takes Glen not throwing the lines into the blender if things aren’t going well. Knowing Glen, that blender is always nearby.

This is not the BradBag, but he’s got some good questions this week.

There’s a lot of calls for Press Box Bennett, but I’m very skeptical that the healthy scratch actually does anything. Remember, Bennett was actually healthy scratched last season against the Predators. Up to that point the season, Bennett played 47 games, had 18 points (split evenly between goals and assists) and 76 shots. After that scratch, he had eight points (split evenly between goals and assists, again) and 46 shots in 34 games over the rest of the season. On a per game basis, he dropped in PPG (0.38 to 0.23) and shots per game (1.62 to 1.35). From a fancy stats perspective, he went from a 47.88 CF% and a 39.13 GF% at 5v5 to a 49.86 CF% and a 36 GF% in the period after the healthy.

A minor improvement in one category, basically, and he still was on the bad side of that one stat. You could argue that healthy scratching actually hurt Sam. If you include this season’s results, you could argue that this healthy scratch actually ruined all of the potential he had left.

But that’s a silly point to make. Healthy scratches don’t provide anything beyond a narrative reference point. Overgeneralizing, but you can pick any date on the calendar, measure what happened before versus what happened after, and then suit the narrative accordingly. Bennett was a 0.49 PPG player, until he got hacked on twitter, after which he was a 0.18 PPG player, so perhaps he should change all of his passwords and then he’ll turn a corner. Since shaving, he has had zero points, but he also had zero points after growing out a beard, so who’s really to say how facial hair affects his game.

Gaudreau didn’t become a better player because he was healthy scratched once, he was always a great player who had a slow start to the season. If he played that fateful game (if I recall, it was against Columbus), I don’t think his career would’ve gone any differently. I’m not sure Bennett’s will go differently because he misses a game.

Because he’s not the problem.

Sure, Stajan is paid more than he’s worth. That’s not up for debate. But as a 4C, it’s hard to see what else he could be doing wrong. Despite being saddled with Brouwer and Glass, two of the worst FA signings in this era of Flames hockey, Stajan ekes out in the black with a 50.56 CF%. Brouwer and Glass are 45.41 CF% and 40.98 CF%, respectively. For even greater emphasis, Stajan and Brouwer have played 75 5v5 minutes together, posting a 51.43 CF%. In the 20 minutes away from Stajan, Brouwer has a 30.36 CF%. Glass is in the single digits away from Stajan. He has his ugly moments, but in aggregate, he is a solid player who gets the job done. Let’s give the man a round of applause.

Ari said it pretty well at season’s beginnings. Stajan isn’t great, but you could do much worse. He’s a guy who will eat fourth line minutes (and PK minutes, too) and not sink the team singlehandedly. His wingers are doing a good job of that. Even if the Flames were willing to replace those two, they could feasibly plop in a few extras and see a better fourth line. He’s the most functional player in the most dysfunctional area of the Flames roster. He’s the last guy you replace in that mess.

Quite the intriguing option. It allows the Flames to keep Jankowski around in some capacity and also gives Lazar some playing time, which he isn’t getting up in Calgary.

The Lazar trade was baffling when it happened. The Flames traded a second round pick (not insignificant: the player the Sens selected, Alex Formenton, actually survived to the end of the training camp and got a regular season NHL game in. He’s currently sixth on his junior team in scoring despite having played anywhere from five to 10 fewer games than the players ahead of him. Those are good signs for an NHL career) for a clearly incomplete player. Certainly mono had affected Lazar’s 2016-17 results, but he wasn’t much else before then and betting on him to immediately improve because of a new jersey seemed to be a dubious bet at best.

The justification to the Lazar trade, as stated then, was that he would be a successful player who could possibly live up to his potential if he wasn’t playing five minutes a night with Chris Neil. More ice time + better linemates = instant success. A simple formula, but one that fell apart when the Flames didn’t even insert him into the lineup until playoffs had been locked up. Even this season, he’s been given shots on every line, including his presumed position on Bennett’s right wing, to no avail.

The Flames can’t get him significant ice time. Even in minor minutes, he doesn’t make the lineup better and they don’t seem to miss a beat when he’s out. Why not send him to Stockton? Part of the narrative has been that the Senators screwed up by rushing him to the NHL. Why not put him in a league where he is not below water and can actually get good playing time? That’s the entire purpose of the AHL, isn’t it? He’d probably clear waivers. Better players have survived the waiver wire this year, and I can’t see any team that would want/need Lazar on their roster.

Will they do it? No. Lazar had a decent game last night and they probably don’t want to send a negative message out eight games into his season.

He was pretty good in last night’s game, but I still think they send him down.

Gulutzan’s usage in the Dallas game (which was notably abysmal) seems to indicate that he isn’t fully comfortable with putting Jankowski on when the game really matters, and he saw just a handful of shifts in last night’s third period. He also hasn’t seen major PP (about 10 seconds in last night’s game) or PK time, which also seems to suggest that he’s just here until Jagr is fit to play. They’ve been playing it cautious with Jankowski, which, reading too deep, might suggest that they’re not convinced he’s all the way there yet.

Given that he’s waiver exempt, the decision is kind of easier for the Flames (versus Lazar, above), but I still think they mull this one over until the last possible moment. I’m sure they feel that he can contribute in sheltered minutes, but also that there’s room to improve and get better. It’s hard to conclude anything after just four games, but without a clear cut position for him, I feel they send him down. Jagr’s return is going to add a dynamic offensive weapon that could really help boost scoring immediately, so it’s not a huge loss.