How Do Calgary’s Defensive Pairings Shake Out?

This was an exciting summer to be following the Calgary Flames.

General manager Brad Treliving made a big swing at the NHL Draft, acquiring Dougie Hamilton from the Boston Bruins for a few draft picks. Fan excitement was high, as was anticipation from media types regarding just how much of an impact Hamilton could have on a pretty talented young Flames team.

With an eye towards exploring just how much Hamilton can impact the Flames in 2015-16, let’s dig into the possible pairings for the next season.

Let’s be blunt here: the Calgary Flames now have three really good defensemen: Mark Giordano, T.J. Brodie and Dougie Hamilton. That’s two left-shooting defenders (Giordano and Brodie) and a right shot (Hamilton). The top pairing for the Flames, like last season, will be a combination of two of these players.

The good news is that leaves a really good defenseman to play in the second pairing.

Now, the next grouping is Kris Russell and Dennis Wideman. Russell’s a pretty effective defensive defender at this point, having set the NHL shot-blocking record by virtue of being in a position where he and Wideman were hemmed into their own zone a lot with the other team shooting pucks at them. Wideman’s a strong offensive player with defensive issues so when Giordano was healthy, these guys got a lot of offensive zone starts.

Unfortunately, Giordano went down and Brodie was paired with Deryk Engelland in the team’s second pairing. Because Engelland needed the help, they got most of the offensive zone starts and Russell and Wideman ended up with defensive starts. Nobody’s sure how good Russell is offensively because he’s had to carry Wideman and Chris Butler since he’s been in Calgary. At worst, we can presume that Hartley values both players equally, albeit for different reasons. Russell’s a left shot, while Wideman is a right shot.

Finally, we have the dynamic duo of Deryk Engelland and Ladislav Smid. Engelland’s physical and was surprisingly competent with T.J. Brodie covering for him last season, but he’s probably ideally suited for a role where he doesn’t play a ton but is relied upon to physically wear down players along the wall. Ladislav Smid was another player of that ilk, though it’s yet to be seen how good he is after a couple pretty gnarly injuries last year. Smid is a left shot, while Engelland is a right shot.

There are a few different ways the pairings could get drawn up by Bob Hartley.

Some coaches like balancing left shots and right shots because it makes the transition game easier and players a bit less likely to bobble the puck when playing it off the boards – they don’t need to shuffle from their back-hand to their fore-hand, for instance.

If the Flames go for left-right balance, here’s how their pairings shake out:

I like these pairings because Hartley gets the benefit of keeping two pairings that performed fairly well during the playoffs and down the stretch together, while adding a really good pairing on top of them. You’re basically retaining whatever chemistry they developed last season, while rewarding them with easier match-ups.

It’s also as close to a balanced attack as the Flames are going to get. One of the strengths of the Anaheim Ducks defensive scheme is that they were able to just rolling pairings last season without worrying too much about zone starts or match-ups. That meant that in the meat of the game, they could lean on their top pairing a bit more because their best players still has gas in the tank.

Oh, and you get the benefit of a Norris candidate being paired up with the team’s shiny new toy. Presumably Giordano and Hamilton would get the top power-play minutes, while Brodie and Wideman would be on the second unit.

Another option is putting Brodie with Wideman and Russell with Engelland, but Russell and Engelland together wasn’t great last season (39.9% CorsiFor together) and the experiment was abandoned very quickly. And I also fear that Brodie with Wideman would really drag Brodie down in terms of his ability to jump into the play (they had a 30.3% CorsiFor in limited even-strength minutes together last season). They work fairly well together on the power-play, but they also have a man advantage in that situation and I’d rather not make new pairings have to re-establish chemistry rather than just cash in on the work already done.

Let’s say that Hartley says “screw it,” and doesn’t want to have balance. He wants one or two pairings that can just wear down teams. With an aim towards having a couple epic pairings, here’s what I came up with.

Giordano and Brodie were awesome together last season (48.9% CorsiFor) and can eat up a lot of minutes. Russell and Hamilton could be really good, particularly given Russell’s past experiences with carrying Wideman and Butler. It’d be cool to give him a chance to really excel with a high-end, well-rounded player.

Beyond that, it’s basically just a grab bag where you choose two of the three. I think because of his offensive talent, you have to keep Wideman in the line-up as often as possible – he can still jump onto the power-play, where he’s quite valuable and productive.

And in terms of Engelland (playing on the left side as a right shot) or Smid, I think it depends on which player shows more. If nothing else, rotate them depending on opponents. Until there’s an official indication that Smid is 100% medically cleared, you might as well just keep Engelland penciled in. (For what it’s worth: Wideman with Engelland had 25.0% CorsiFor, while Wideman and Smid together were 43.6% CorsiFor.)

It’s also worth noting that Tyler Wotherspoon is a left-handed shot, and he’s developing into a pretty decent stay-at-home defender. If they want to bring him along slowly, putting him on the left side with Wideman on a pairing that doesn’t get a lot of minutes but gets lots of offensive zone starts could be a nice way of doing that. If anything, that might be the ideal – giving the Flames a couple strong pairings and a third pairing with a young guy on the left and a guy with a cannon of a shot on the right.

But that would probably also involve an injury or two to the defensive group – or a trade or two – and would probably render a lot of this discussion moot.

If I had the ability to play God and throw three pairings together for opening night against Vancouver, here’s what they would be:

One of Engelland or Smid would be in the press box, the other would probably be traded somewhere else.

Here’s what I think we get on opening night.

Ladislav Smid is probably in the press box, Tyler Wotherspoon is probably in Stockton.