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Year-End Scoring Chance Round-Up
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Ryan Pike
May 12, 2014, 10:00 EDTUpdated: Invalid DateTime
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One of the things we do here at FlamesNation is count scoring chances. We do this because we care, but also because the data can be pretty useful – both on an individual level and in the aggregate. We’ll have some more time to dig into the data over the summer, but here’s a quick overview of how things turned out for individual players.

TERMINOLOGY

CF%: Corsi For %; percentage of all shots, missed shots and blocked shots that were sent towards the opponent’s net while a player’s on the ice.
FF%: Fenwick For %; percentage of all shots and missed shots that were sent towards the opponent’s net (it’s Corsi that ignores blocked shots) while the player’s on the ice.
SF%: Shots For %; percentage of all shots that were sent towards the opponent’s net while the player’s on the ice.
GF%: Goals For %; percentage of all goals scored while a player’s on the ice that were scored on the opponent’s net.
SC%: Scoring Chance For %; percentage of all scoring chances while a player’s on the ice that were on the opponent’s net. In short: it’s Corsi, except limited to attempts within the “home-plate” zone in front of the net.
CorsRel QoC: The average CorsiRel of the opponents each player played against. Typically there’s a continuum from 2 (the other team’s best players) to -2 (slugs), but there are exceptions.

DEFENSEMEN

Player
GP
CF%
FF%
SF%
GF%
SC%
CorsiRel
QoC
Giordano
64
53.3
53.5
54.8
53.5
52.8
1.682
Brodie
81
51.5
52.3
52.0
48.7
52.0
1.487
Russell
68
43.5
45.9
46.3
46.1
46.7
0.370
Butler
82
42.8
45.2
44.9
37.5
45.2
0.311
Cundari
4
47.7
50.8
52.5
0.0
44.4
-4.347
O’Brien
45
44.0
44.4
42.2
39.0
42.3
-1.526
Wideman
46
45.9
47.9
49.4
43.1
42.0
-0.270
Wotherspoon
14
40.5
41.5
42.9
41.2
41.9
0.119
Smid
56
41.2
43.4
43.3
41.7
40.4
0.536
Smith
14
48.4
43.9
40.4
14.3
35.7
-1.406
Billins
10
44.4
43.4
40.2
36.4
34.6
-1.906
Breen
9
45.1
43.2
41.3
54.5
34.0
-1.054
Boy howdy, Giordano and Brodie are amazing. They face EASILY the hardest competition on the team, and they constantly push play the right way. Butler and Russell are shielded, but their numbers are adequate on a team with a 46% average. Smid and Wotherspoon aren’t too shielded and their numbers aren’t great, suggesting that they could do better with more favourable circumstances. Wideman, O’Brien, Billins, Smith and Breen are not good, and they were shielded quite a bit. Granted, Wideman was injured or recovering from injury for a big chunk of the year, but for the guy with the richest contract on the entire team, that’s pretty awful.

FORWARDS

Player
GP
CF%
FF%
SF%
GF%
SC%
CorsiRel
QoC
Backlund
76
51.7
53.3
52.6
51.4
54.4
1.000
Baertschi
26
43.2
45.2
45.7
44.4
50.3
-0.399
Byron
47
50.4
51.2
52.2
52.8
50.0
0.884
Horak
1
41.7
33.3
40.0
0.0
50.0
N/A
Galiardi
62
49.5
51.2
50.4
39.4
49.9
0.629
Cammalleri
63
50.8
51.7
51.9
45.7
49.3
1.011
Hudler
75
46.7
47.5
47.2
55.8
48.5
0.454
Stempniak
52
48.3
48.2
48.4
30.8
47.8
N/A
Stajan
63
47.6
49.3
49.4
40.2
46.4
1.028
Reinhart
8
45.5
41.8
38.2
60.0
45.9
0.592
Jones (B)
14
43.5
42.7
45.8
50.0
45.7
0.329
Glencross
38
42.7
44.0
43.0
37.0
45.2
0.891
Jones (D)
48
45.3
47.6
48.5
51.2
44.4
1.229
Monahan
75
43.8
44.9
44.8
41.8
43.8
-0.040
Colborne
80
45.4
46.5
47.1
42.3
43.6
0.208
Granlund
7
44.4
44.8
42.2
60.0
43.3
0.200
Bouma
78
43.5
46.0
47.3
46.4
42.9
0.453
Westgarth
36
41.1
43.8
44.1
45.0
41.9
-1.326
Agostino
8
43.4
46.0
44.6
33.3
41.2
-0.692
Hanowski
11
44.3
46.2
47.3
37.5
40.0
-0.252
Arnold
1
50.0
54.5
40.0
0.0
40.0
0.167
McGrattan
76
38.4
41.0
41.3
43.8
38.1
-1.191
Jackman
10
42.3
43.3
43.1
33.3
37.5
N/A
Knight
7
42.9
50.7
53.8
42.9
37.0
-0.176
Van Brabant
6
36.3
39.7
35.3
33.3
36.8
0.120
Street
13
41.4
41.7
42.0
37.5
36.7
0.682
Gaudreau
1
57.9
58.3
66.7
100
33.3
-0.381
MacDermid
1
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
33.3
-2.334
Backlund and Byron: not shielded, but driving play. With Byron, not sure how much is his linemates and how much is him, but I’m curious to see how he does over a full year. Looking at goals-for, Galiardi and Stempniak just had no luck at all – especially Galiardi. He wasn’t shielded, consistently drove play, yet couldn’t hit water if he fell out of a boat. David Jones’ numbers were just slightly under the team average, despite him (a) dealing with injuries all year and (b) facing tough sledding. Baertschi was shielded a little bit, but had really good chance numbers given that.
Monahan and Colborne generally played together. They weren’t shielded. They were below average in terms of chances. But remember: they’re really young. And shocker: Westgarth and McGrattan were heavily shielded and were buried alive in terms of scoring chances.

HIGHS & LOWS

Most chances-for among regulars:
  • T.J. Brodie – 383
  • Chris Butler – 309
  • Mark Giordano – 297
  • Kris Russell – 291
  • Mikael Backlund – 279
Least chances-for among regulars:
  • Kevin Westgarth – 39
  • Brian McGrattan – 80
  • Shane O’Brien – 90
  • Paul Byron – 125
  • Curtis Glencross – 128
Most chances-against among regulars:
  • Chris Butler – 374
  • T.J. Brodie – 353
  • Kris Russell – 332
  • Jiri Hudler – 282
  • Sean Monahan – 276
Least chances-against among regulars:
  • Kevin Westgarth – 54
  • Shane O’Brien – 123
  • Paul Byron – 125
  • Brian McGrattan – 130
  • Curtis Glencross – 155
Any differences between the goaltenders?
  • Team was 51.58% with Joni Ortio in net
  • Team was 50.00% with Joey MacDonald in net
  • Team was 45.43% with Karri Ramo in net
  • Team was 43.71% with Reto Berra in net

SUM IT UP

The Flames’ good players are – shocker – good by possession metrics. Some of their not-great players appear to have had bad years, like David Jones and T.J. Galiardi.
And the team seemed to play better with Joni Ortio in net than with anybody else, and better with Karri Ramo than with Reto Berra.

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