After a dramatic seven game overtime victory over the Dallas Stars in the first round, the Calgary Flames were eliminated by the Edmonton Oilers in the second round (with an equally dramatic five game loss).
When you dig into the series-by-series underlying numbers, the reasons for the second round exit become fairly apparent.
Underlying numbers via Natural Stat Trick.
Regular season segments:
- First (Games 1-7): 5-1-1 [11 of 14 points]
- Second (Games 8-14): 2-2-3 [7 of 14 points]
- Third (Games 15-21): 5-1-1 [11 of 14 points]
- Fourth (Games 22-28): 3-3-1 [7 of 14 points]
- Fifth (Games 29-35): 3-4-0 [6 of 14 points]
- Sixth (Games 36-42): 5-2-0 [10 of 14 points]
- Seventh (Games 43-49): 7-0-0 [14 of 14 points]
- Eighth (Games 50-56): 4-2-1 [9 of 14 points]
- Ninth (Games 57-63): 4-2-1 [9 of 14 points]
- Tenth (Games 64-70): 4-2-1 [9 of 14 points]
- Eleventh (Games 71-77): 5-1-1 [11 of 14 points]
- Twelfth (Games 78-82): 3-1-1 [7 of 10 points]
Playoff segments:
Dating back to the fifth segment of the season, the Flames puttered along and won the majority of their games before they faced the Oilers.
Game by game
(Percentage stats in this table are 5v5 and via Natural Stat Trick.)
Date | Opponent | Result | CF% | SCF% | HDCF% | xGF% | PP | PK |
May 18 | Oilers (vs) | 9-6 W | 63.8 | 68.9 | 68.4 | 66.7 | 1-for-3 | 4-for-4 |
May 20 | Oilers (vs) | 5-3 L | 60.2 | 52.4 | 66.7 | 57.5 | 1-for-5 | 5-for-6 |
May 22 | Oilers (@) | 4-1 L | 52.3 | 52.2 | 47.6 | 49.4 | 0-for-4 | 5-for-5 |
May 24 | Oilers (@) | 5-3 L | 64.1 | 56.8 | 50.0 | 45.3 | 1-for-3 | 2-for-4 |
May 26 | Oilers (vs) | 5-4 OTL | 49.6 | 49.2 | 50.0 | 47.1 | 0-for-2 | 0-for-1 |
R2 (R1) | — | 1-4 (4-3) | 57.5 (61.1) | 55.5 (59.1) | 55.6 (60.7) | 53.2 (60.0) | 3-for-17 (2-for-24) | 16-for-20 (22-for-24) |
Compared to the Dallas series, the Flames were a little bit worse at everything at five-on-five. They were the slightly better team across the board in these metrics, though that was probably nudged a bit by the Flames’ dominance in Game 1. The Flames lost the expected goals battle in three of five games. (They lost all three of those games.)
Special teams wise, the Flames were out-scored by the Oilers 4-3. In a close series, that’s not ideal.
Team stats
During the regular season we compared the Flames within their own division. Now? We’re comparing them to all 16 of the NHL’s playoff teams.
- Their goals for per game is 2.92, up from 2.14. They’re 9th among playoff teams.
- Their goals against per game is 3.25, up from 2.00. They’re 9th (lowest) among playoff teams.
- Their goal differential is -4, down from +1. They’re tied for 11th among playoff teams.
- Their power play is at 12.2%, up from 8.3%. They’re 14th among playoff teams.
- Their penalty kill is at 86.4%, down from 91.7%. They’re 4th among playoff teams.
- They’ve taken 15.5 penalty minutes per game, down from 15.9. They’re 2nd among playoff teams.
- Their 5v5 xGF/60 is 3.22, down from 3.39. That’s 2nd among playoff teams.
- Their 5v5 xGA/60 is 2.40, up from 2.26. That’s 5th among playoff teams.
- Their 5v5 xGF is 57.2%, down from 60.0%. That’s 3rd among playoff teams.
- Their 5v5 shooting percentage is 7.00%, up from 4.65%. That’s 12th among playoff teams.
- Their 5v5 save percentage is 90.04%, down from 94.67%. That’s 14th among playoff teams.
- Their 5v5 PDO is 0.970, down from 0.993. That’s 14th among playoff teams.
Allow more goals than you score? Well that’s not a recipe for success. But the big thing here is the percentages. The Flames’ five-on-five shooting percentage nudged up by 2.35% from Round 1 to Round 2. But their save percentage dropped by 4.63% in that same span, basically wiping out those gains.
The Flames were a bit worse at generating offensive than against Dallas, a bit worse at preventing offense than against Dallas, a bit worse at preventing power play goals against than against Dallas, and got worse goaltending than against Dallas. And for those reasons, their season is over.
Player stats
First, the forwards (all situations, ordered by ice time). Last segment’s figures are in brackets.
xGF% is used as a proxy for possession, offensive zone face-off percentage (OZF%) as a proxy for usage, PDO as a proxy for puck luck. Game scores: Positive values indicate positive impact, negative values reflect negative impact.
Player | TOI | G | P | P/60 | SH% | xGF% | OZF% | PDO | Game score |
Lindholm | 104:07 (150:01) | 2 (3) | 4 (5) | 2.30 (2.00) | 12.5 (16.7) | 56.4 (52.1) | 50.0 (57.7) | .929 (.955) | 0.22 (1.03) |
Backlund | 100:19 (134:21) | 2 (3) | 4 (4) | 2.39 (1.79) | 16.7 (14.3) | 57.7 (65.8) | 40.9 (44.9) | .962 (1.031) | 1.33 (0.84) |
Gaudreau | 95:10 (139:34) | 1 (2) | 6 (8) | 3.78 (3.44) | 3.7 (8.0) | 60.6 (62.7) | 67.8 (71.6) | .959 (.972) | 0.50 (1.73) |
Tkachuk | 92:40 (123:13) | 3 (1) | 4 (6) | 2.59 (2.92) | 15.8 (6.3) | 61.5 (59.4) | 67.3 (73.8) | .928 (.950) | 0.23 (1.08) |
Mangiapane | 78:49 (108:09) | 2 (1) | 4 (2) | 3.05 (1.11) | 13.3 (8.3) | 66.3 (62.9) | 52.2 (61.7) | 1.029 (.994) | 1.63 (0.56) |
Coleman | 78:01 (99:34) | 2 (0) | 4 (1) | 3.08 (0.00) | 15.4 (0.0) | 51.7 (57.6) | 59.6 (63.8) | 1.076 (1.006) | 1.55 (0.52) |
Toffoli | 76:05 (120:49) | 1 (1) | 3 (2) | 2.37 (0.99) | 10.0 (4.4) | 61.6 (52.3) | 65.6 (68.4) | 1.006 (.939) | 0.44 (0.32) |
Jarnkrok | 70:03 (103:55) | 1 (0) | 3 (1) | 2.57 (0.58) | 16.7 (0.0) | 41.8 (61.6) | 47.6 (55.2) | .913 (1.026) | 0.25 (0.51) |
Dube | 67:57 (103:48) | 0 (0) | 1 (0) | 0.88 (0.00) | 0.0 (0.0) | 53.1 (60.4) | 59.5 (60.9) | .882 (.990) | -0.07 (0.46) |
Lewis | 65;58 (82:48) | 0 (2) | 2 (3) | 1.82 (2.17) | 0.0 (16.7) | 29.6 (68.9) | 71.8 (56.1) | .986 (.915) | 0.05 (0.64) |
Lucic | 43:45 (68:46) | 0 (0) | 0 (1) | 0.00 (0.87) | 0.0 (0.0) | 37.2 (61.8) | 74.1 (56.7) | .965 (.901) | -0.28 (0.14) |
Ritchie | 23:52 (36:49) | 2 (0) | 2 (0) | 5.02 (0.00) | 33.3 (0.0) | 47.3 (72.0) | 73.3 (66.7) | .868 (.960) | 0.58 (0.34) |
The most common Flames forward lines were (in descending order):
- Gaudreau – Lindholm – Tkachuk
- Mangiapane – Backlund – Coleman
- Dube – Jarnkrok – Coleman
- Lucic – Lewis – Ritchie
Which Flames forwards were good? The trio of Mangiapane, Backlund and Coleman really stood out and were noticeable all series long. Gaudreau and Toffoli were part of a secondary cluster in terms of game score.
But everybody else ranged from unimpressive to worse, with much of the remainder of the forward group failing to stand out for positive reasons and largely fading into the series’ background.
Now, the defence (all situations, ordered by ice time):
Player | TOI | G | P | P/60 | SH% | xGF% | OZF% | PDO | Game score |
Andersson | 114:21 (148:18) | 2 (1) | 4 (2) | 2.10 (0.81) | 18.2 (8.3) | 51.5 (51.0) | 55.7 (50.0) | .914 (.943) | -0.09 (0.43) |
Hanifin | 113:54 (162:52) | 0 (0) | 2 (1) | 1.05 (0.37) | 0.0 (0.0) | 50.3 (53.9) | 53.1 (46.4) | .872 (.912) | -0.35 (0.24) |
Zadorov | 90:18 (127:18) | 0 (0) | 1 (2) | 0.66 (0.94) | 0.0 (0.0) | 49.6 (65.4) | 48.2 (69.0) | .983 (1.007) | 0.67 (1.13) |
Gudbranson | 88:55 (127:31) | 0 (0) | 1 (0) | 0.67 (0.00) | 0.0 (0.0) | 37.9 (56.8) | 41.8 (53.3) | .936 (1.038) | -0.13 (0.95) |
Kylington | 83:04 (111:51) | 1 (0) | 2 (1) | 1.44 (0.54) | 20.0 (0.0) | 46.7 (60.5) | 55.3 (67.7) | 1.087 (1.009) | 0.40 (1.09) |
Stone | 61:28 (55:46) | 1 (1) | 2 (3) | 1.95 (3.23) | 14.3 (5.9) | 64.9 (68.2) | 60.0 (79.5) | 0.976 (1.069) | 0.85 (1.87) |
Tanev | 41:31 (115:03) | 0 (0) | 1 (0) | 1.44 (0.00) | 0.0 (0.0) | 41.7 (54.5) | 61.1 (45.2) | 1.110 (.985) | 1.16 (0.56) |
he most common defensive pairings were (in descending order):
- Hanifin & Andersson
- Zadorov & Gudbranson
- Kylington & Stone
In a word: oof. The Hanifin/Anderson duo struggled throughout the series. Kylington played with Stone and Tanev, and generally played well. Zadorov played fairly well, while Gudbranson’s underlyings dipped – a product of the Flames’ penalty kill getting victimized.
When three of a team’s top four defenders in overall ice time have negative game scores for a series, odds are the series didn’t go particularly well for that team.
And finally, goalies (all situations):
Player | TOI | SV% | ldSV% | mdSV% | hdSV% | Avg. GSAX |
Markstrom | 281:03 (431:24) | .852 (.943) | .943 (1.000) | .862 (.879) | .705 (.915) | -1.79 (0.88) |
Vladar | 19:55 (-) | 1.000 (-) | 1.000 (-) | 1.000 (-) | 1.000 (-) | 0.64 (-) |
Markstrom was worse than he was in Round 1 basically across the board. He had a small dip in low and medium danger shots against, but his high-danger performance really cratered. Markstrom was almost lights-out against Dallas, but he was almost the opposite against Edmonton.
Combine worse goaltending than the Dallas series with less ability to generate offense and suppress the other team’s, and it’s not exactly a recipe for success. Against Edmonton, it was a recipe for a playoff exit.
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