I'm just going throw some stuff against the wall and see what sticks...
There's an interesting discussion going on over at the real deal regarding the quality of minutes Flames defenders tend to get each night. My contention is that Dion Phaneuf is currently the top dog on the Calgary blueline, drawing the toughest minutes at ES. On the other hand, Kyle believes that Regehr is still the Flames hard minute-muncher.
I hadn't really looked into it too deeply, just gone on general impressions I'd gotten from watching the games. To my eyes, it looked like Keenan was playing the Aucoin/Phaneuf duo with the Iginla line and then running that unit out against the other opposition's top dogs. One thing Im not while watching Flames games, though, is dispassionately unbiased, so I figured I should explore the matter a little.
Thanks to the fabulous time on ice app, I was able to do some investigating. The first game I looked at was the most recent Detroit/Clagary match, mainly because it was my post on the Zetterberg match-ups that generated this discussion. In that game, Phaneuf played 17 minutes at ES, about 10 of which was spent against Lidstrom, Rafalski, Zetterberg, Datsyuk and Holmstrom. Regehr, on the other hand, played about 15 minutes at ES, a bulk of which was against the Cleary/Draper/Filpulla unit(s). In the end, Reggie saw only about 4 minutes against the likes of Datsyuk and Zetterberg that night.
There wasn't as discernible a pattern in the Nashville/Calgary contest. Dion played sixteen and a half minutes, primarily against Arnott, Dumont and Erat. Regehr only saw 12.5 ES minutes that night, about half of which was also against guys like Erat and Arnott (though, he played against Legwand more than Phaneuf did). Some clarification can be had by looking at Arnott's minutes (assuming he's the #1 center in Nashville). He played the most of any forward (12.9 minutes), and about 10 them he was run against the Iginla trio. Phaneuf and Aucoin saw over 7 minutes against Arnott's line, with Regehr and Sarich down around 5. Again, it looks like Phaneuf is getting the tougher minutes here.
However, on Saturday against the Wild, Phaneuf saw a whopping 22 ES minutes, but only played 3 of them against Gaborik. Regehr, on the other hand, was on for 18 5on5 minutes and played 6+ against Gaborik's line. The confounder here is the Lemaire factor - as the home team, Minny had the power to keep Gabby et al. away from the Iginla/Phaneuf unit and it looks like that's what they did. Hell, Anders Eriksson played more against Marian than Phaneuf did (4+ minutes) - and that's certainly not a match-up any sane person on the Flames bench would favor. Instead, Minnesata ran the Koivu/Veilleux checking unit out against Iginla's line, leaving the relatively exploitable "soft" minutes for Gaborik (and it worked. He scored 3 points, two at ES).
This segues nicely into a comment about Robyn Regehr...
He's sucking complete ass right now. His GA/60 rate is currently sitting at 2.54, 2nd highest on the team behind Anders (the 3.0M useless tit) Eriksson (3.54 GA/60) - even though he's not consistently seeing the toughest match-ups. And that's just his ES stat, which is where the Flames are relatively strong. At SH, Regehr's GA/60 rate is an abysmal 12.12. Granted, none of the Flames are any good by this measure (Aucoin - 12.99 GA/60, Phaneuf 12.98 GA/60, Sarich 12.82 GA/60, Eriksson 15.65 GA/60), but this is where Reggie should really excel. To put that number in perspective, guys like Pronger, Malik, Brett Clark and Steve Staios are hovering around the 4 to 5 GA/60 mark on the PK so far.
Not good.
Regehr ended up last season with an ES goals against rate of about 1.80, and that was when Phaneuf was still being sheltered. The good news, then, is that Reggie is capable of being much better and may yet round into form (he kinda struggled last year too for awhile). The bad news is, defense is all Regehr brings to the table. If he can't recapture his "shut-down" form, then the Flames will be stuck with a 4.0M, medicore, 20 point blueliner for the next 5 years.
I honestly don't think the latter will happen. Regehr has proven to be amongst the league's elite defensive minded rearguards in the past. Whatever's causing his current lack luster play - be it an injury or otherwise - I don't expect it to hamper him long term. When (if) the old Regehr returns, expect the Flames defense (and PK) to improve.
Which moves me onto my next topic: the Penalty Kill. It was bad last year and it's even worse thus far this season. Mirtle recently posted league-wide save percentage by situation and the Flames/Kipper placed dead last on the PK with a horrid 0.689 number. Less than 70%! That's 22% lower than the Flames ES SV% (.910)! Considering the personnel, that's an inexcusably bad figure. The second lowest in the league is the Chicago Blackhawks at 0.731.
Im at a loss to explain it, myself. Sure Regehr and Kipper haven't been great, but this is going on two seasons of team-wide PK suckage. If the coaching staff can't figure this one out, the Flames will continue to bleed goals against (and therefore wins).
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The Flames have been a team of extremes since Darryl Sutter took the reigns. At first, they were terrible at scoring but great at defending. League worst, league best. Then, under Playfair, the Flames figured out how to score, but couldn't win on the road. This year, the Flames are scoring even more prolifically, have won a couple on the road, but can't seem to defend while a man down. It's really starting to look like Sutter is plugging holes in a boat with his fingers: as soon as he fixes one leak, another one springs up...
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Calgary visits Colorado tonight, a place they should probably fear to tread. The Avs have won 6 straight against the Flames, the last two being improbable come-from behind victories. Hejduk is back in the Colorado line-up, meaning Quenneville will have his choice of lines to run against the Eriksson/Hale (or Warrener) duo this evening. Im guessing he'll reserve Sakic/Smyth/Svatos (Hejduk) unit for Iginla and then gleefully run out Statsny/Brunette/Wolski (Hejduk) against the softer underbelly. Of course, the ES match-ups may be immaterial if the Flame's PK continues to be bottom of the barrel (no signs that it won't). Sigh.
That said, let's go with optimism for this evening. The Avs have had the lions share of bounces against the Flames so far, meaning they're in-line for an own goal or two tonight. Besides, Kipper and Regehr have to turn it around at some point, right?
Flames 4, Avs 2. Iginla, Huselius, Moss and Phaneuf for Calgary. Sakic and Wolski for the Avs.
