Well, I've gone over the Flames schedule and collected some data from the last five game sample. Figured I'd do a bit of a data dump for those twisted few souls that are actually interested in this and share my own few thoughts on the subject as well.
December 31 6-3 win over Edmoton
Match-ups:
Cammalleri - Conroy - Iginla @ Penner - Horcoff - Reddox
Bourque - Langkow - Bertuzzi @ Cole - Gagner - Nilsson
Glencross - Lombardi - Moss @ Moreau - Cogliano - Brule
Nystrom - Boyd - Roy @ Stortini - Brodziak - Strudwick
Looks like Keenan was satisfied with simply going line for line against MacTavish on New Years eve. Reggie and Aucoin played behind Iginla, meaning Keenan identified the Horcoff line as the biggest threat, essentially going power v. power.
Here's the games corsi ratings, which gives an idea who was winning the possession battle.
Flames were a +10 on the evening. Guys in the red included Bourque (-1), Nystrom (-1), Langkow (-1), Lombardi (-2), Roy (-3) and Pardy (-3). The most curious discrepancy is the difference between Lombo and Glencross (+10), since the former spent nearly 7 of his 11 ES minutes with the latter. A shift or two with Jarome and Cammalleri must have gone very wrong to plunge Lombo underwater like that.
It's somewhat surprising to me that Langkow et al would lose the possession battle to Gagner et al, although, as I remember it, the Gagner line was easily the best one on the night for the Oilers AND that ended up being a dreadful evening for the Flames second line in general (another -3 for big Bert!). On the other hand, Glencross and Moss beat up on the Moreau line while Iginla just edged out Horcoff (which, in my eyes, is an indictment of Iginla's play. fer Chrissakes, Horcoff was playing with Penner and Liam Reddox. Horcoff is a decent player, but Iggy should be beating that lines head in by himself).
Jan 3 win over Nashville
Match-ups:
Cammalleri - Conroy/Lombardi - Iginla @ Erat - Arnott - Pihlstrom
Bourque - Langkow - Bertuzzi @ Tootoo - Peverly - Pihlstrom
Glencross - Lombardi/Conroy - Moss @ Dumont - Arnott - Tootoo
Nystrom - Boyd - Roy @ Erat - Arnott - Ward
Boy oh boy, what a mess. It's nearly impossible to track match-ups by the ice time here, because it looks like the troll spent the evening mixing and matching his players while chasing extremely favorable assignments for his big boys (Arnott vs. 3rd and 4th lines) with Keenan responding by bouncing Lombo and Conroy around. You'll notice Legwand doesn't show up, because I really had no idea where to slot him: he played about 8 minutes at ES - and his time was spread out against Lombardi, Moss, Bertuzzi, Bourque, Glencross and Langkow fairly evenly. So take the above with a pinch of salt on the NSH side.
This was a game I thought the Flames played poorly up until the latter half of the third. It's also one I thought Bertuzzi et al. looked terrible in and, lo and behold! They lost the possession battle again according to the corsi figures. Ironically, it was that line that won the game by scoring the tying and winning goals in the third. Good thing - otherwise, they're the goats.
All the other Flames forwards - aside from Boyd - did well for themselves amidst the match-up chaos, which is good since Trotz loves to try to get his big guys out against the "weaker sisters". Iginla was outscored, but he and Cammalleri basically got unlucky: they fired 7 shots on goal to their opponents 3.
On another note, the "d" match-ups were equally confusing from a Calgary perspective. To me, it looks like Keenan worried about getting Regehr out against Arnott and then, perhaps, let the face-off position (own zone, offensive zone) moderate d-movement from there.
January 4 5-2 loss against Chicago
Match-ups:
Cammalleri - Conroy/Lombardi - Iginla @ Havlat - Bolland - Ladd
Bourque - Langkow - Bertuzzi @ Byfuglien - Toews - Versteeg
Glencross - Conroy/Lombardi - Moss @ Eager - Brouwer - Sharp
Nystrom - Boyd - Roy @ Fraser - Adams - Burish
A more straight forward evening, with Quenneville happy to run Havlat at Jarome and Toews at Langkow. This was a rare evening where the Flames were in the red in terms of corsi ratings, helped perhaps by the fact the Flames were on the second day of a B2B. That said, the only guys in the black were Glencross, Giordano, Conroy, Moss and Aucoin. Good thing Kane wasn't in the line-up.
Kind of interesting to look at Chicago's lines: notice the spread of noted offensive difference-makers (Toews, Havlat, Sharp) with a variety of less noted kids and such (Brouwer, Bolland, Versteeg, Eager). I guess the Hawks have a LOT of "kids and such", so they have to go somewhere. Still - I think there would be a very different configuration in the Windy City if Keenan were the coach.
What's also interesting is the fact that this is the 3rd straight game where guys I've lauded in this space recently (Langkow, Bourque) were underwater at ES in terms of possession (although they did outscore the bad guys). Hmm...
Jan 6 5-2 win over San Jose
Match-ups:
Cammalleri - Conroy - Iginla @ Cheechoo - Thornton - Michalek
Bourque - Langkow - Bertuzzi @ Clowe - Marleau - Steoguchi
Glencross - Lombardi - Moss @ Goc - Pavelski/Plihal - Grier
Nystrom - Boyd - Roy @ Staubitz - Plihal/Goc - Semenov
The match-ups below the top 6 weren't at all straight forward. Pavelski actually jumped around the Sharks line-up a tad, while guys like Boyd, Staubitz and Semenov were basically sheltered as much as possible by their respective coaches. Roy and Nystrom, meanwhile, actually saw more of Cheechoo and Marleau than they did the other 4th liners.
Here are the corsi numbers. This was the "statement" win for Calgary and they didn't do it with bounces. The Flames were in the black at ES in terms of possession, with only Iginla (-1) and Conroy (-1) being underwater. Langkow and company got things going the right way against Marleau's line, handily out-chancing and outscoring them. Good news.
Jan 8 5-2 win over NYI
Match-ups:
Cammalleri - Conroy - Iginla @ Park
Bourque - Langkow - Lombardi/Boyd @ Tambellini - Guerin - Bailey
Glencross - Lombardi/Backlund - Moss @ Comeau - Comrie - Okposo
Nystrom - Boyd/Backlund - Roy @ Hunter - Park - Bergenheim
This was a weird night as well. Iginla et al. spent almost an equal amount of time against everyone from the Isles, the leader of which was Richard Park at about 4 minutes (just 30% of Jarome's near 13 minutes of ice). Tambellini, Jackman, Smith, Comeau, Bergenheim and Guerin all saw Jarome for about 3 minutes or so. Just a strangely even mix of opposition for the captain which is why I didn't really list anyone beside the #1 line in the match-ups. There were also guys like Jon Sim that were irreverent (2 minutes of ice) or inserted randomly throughout the line-up (Smith...who played with Jackman, Sim, Hunter and Park to varying degrees). If you were to ask me beforehand, I would have thought Hunter would be the guy to see Jarome the most (he strikes me as the best option to face the big guns on New York), so I dont know if Keenan was working the match-ups feverishly or the Isles coach just...yeah, I don't know. Hell, there wasn't even a dedicated defensive pair matched against Iginla: Streit/Witt spent about 5 minutes against the big line - the most of any duo - with Martinek and Campoli just behind them at 4 minutes.
The Langkow/Guerin match-up seemed slightly more regular as did the Comrie/Glencross pairing. The latter line beat up on their counter-parts (featuring a bored Bill Guerin and a scared teenager), while Glencross and co were actually underwater. Overall, the Flames had a +14 corsi rating with only Glencross, Moss, Boyd and the Regehr pairing (who spent most of the night against the Comeau trio) in the red.
Anyways, here's the total shot data from the 5 game sample we're talking about.
- As you can see, Boyd ended up being the only negative out of the bunch somehow. Part of that has to do with who he plays with and part of that has to do with how he's used.
The link takes you to the face-off data from the same sample of games. As you can see, Boyd is the only guy on the team besides Iginla, Roy, Nystrom and Conroy not to have more offensive than defensive zone draws. However, it also suggests to me that Keenan might actually be employing Boyd properly by sheltering him on the 4th line. Chokes me to say that, because I like Boyd, but it looks like the puck doesn't move in the right direction when he's on the ice. Maybe that would change if he was on the Langkow line with Bourque getting a ton more O-zone draws (rather than starting in the neutral zone with Roy and Nystrom all the time)...or, maybe, he would drag the other guys down.
- I've been on Jarome's case lately, but, as you can see, he's taken the most own zone draws on the team the last little while and the shooting percentage with him on the ice has been just ghastly 4.3% (!). That just isn't going to last, I dont care who Iginla's center is.
- It's been a fun ride, but the Bourque train is going to come to a screeching halt here...sooner rather than later. He hasn't been as nearly as dominant as I had thought at driving possession at ES (+12), he got a lot of offensive zone face-off love over the span in question (-18) and the SH% with him on the ice was absurd (20%). I still like the guy, but..."conditions have been favorable".
- Is Lombo ever going to catch a break? The SV% behind him through these five games was a team worst .875.
Overall, it looks like Keenan is mostly giving Jarome the toughest sledding, while saving the cherry stuff for Langkow's line. Iginla's actually done alright with that assignment, especially given his relatively lackluster centermen (Lombardi/Conroy). I would expect his on ice SH% to jump up at least to mean levels pretty soon, which will mean he's in line for a significant bump in his results, especially if he continues to drive possession. A more capable center for Jarome would make sense, I think, and I wonder if Langkow won't eventually land on the top line if Keenan decides to keep going power v. power. I also think we're going to get a swing in contributions, with Iginla's trio (whoever it is) suddenly driving the bus while Langkow and Bourque cool off.
Feel free to share any of you own observations. Lots of stuff to go through here and I probably only touched the surface of it.
