record: 8-9-3
GF: 59
GA: 63
PP: 15.8% (17th)
PK: 75.2% (29th)
It's hard not to be disgusted and depressed by these numbers. The Flames have one more win and have allowed one less goal against than the Edmonton Oilers. That's the Edmonton Oilers, probably the worst team in the league, beset by injuries to their already suspect blueline. Calgary is one game below .500 and have a negative GD (-4) through 20 games. The special teams have been either mediocre (PP) or terrible (PK). Qualitatively, the Flames have struggled to establish any sort of consistency, frequently bouncing between excellent (5-3 win over Minnesota) or putrid (4-1 loss to San Jose). They've managed to lose a lot of games to divisional opponents so far this season by either blowing giant leads (5-4 loss to the Avs) or despite boasting a far superior roster (4-1 loss to injury-riddled Vancouver).
These are all the hallmarks of a bad team. Pitiable special teams, a negative GD and an uncanny knack of losing games. It's been a frustrating, messy start to the season and marks probably the worst opening quarter since Sutter took over. Im sure the disconnect between the club's performance and it's cumulative player salary is not lost on the Franchises owners (or Sutter himself).
So what have been the problems so far?
Miikka Kiprusoff
I can't remember a worse 20 game stretch for Kipper in Flames silks. His .881 SV% has him in the leagues basement in terms of starters. Much maligned Peter Budaj and MA Fleury have superior numbers. Andrew Freaking Raycroft is up around .887. That is terrible company for a 3 time Vezina candidate to keep.
To be fair, Miikka's been a victim of circumstance to some extent. A lot of pucks have bounced in off his own players so far, and the defensive zone coverage in front of him has been suspect, at best. However, the blame can't completely heaped upon the skater's shoulders. Kipper has allowed more than few suspect goals in the first 20. Isbister's marker in the 4-1 loss last night was a prime example: a floating golf shot from just inside the blueline. No NHL goalie should be letting that get past them, let alone a guy of Kiprusoff's caliber. He wasn't even in the right half of the net to stop the puck...in fact, he looked rather stunned that a rubber biscuit was flying at him at all (as if Scott Bakula's consciousness had quantum lept into his body and was surprised to find he was dressed in heavy equipment and standing on a sheet of ice in front 18,000 people).
There seemed to be signs that Kipper was awakening from his funk recently, but, like the rest of the team, every step forward seems to be answered by one or two steps back. If the Flames are to pull out of this nosedive, they're going to need Kipper to get his shit together. And fast.
Snake-Eyes
Back in July, I wrote a post about the various gambles Sutter was taking with this roster going into the season. The list was, in short:
1.) Adrian Aucoin - Top 4 defender?
2.) Owen Nolan - Still able to contribute?
3.) Lombardi - Top 6 forward?
4.) Huselius - Repeat performance?
5.) Yelle/Nilson - bounce back season(s)?
...as you can see, the roster isn't without its coin flips. If a couple (particularly the BIG ones like Aucoin and Nolan) land on heads, the team will roll along fine. On the other hand, should Sutter come up snake eyes on most of his big gambles, it's unlikely the Flames will experience any large measure of success.
So far, the big gambles are looking like bad bets. I'm willing to admit that Aucoin hasn't been terrible, overall, though he tends to vary from adequate to dreadful, depending on the game. He was one of the worst players on the ice the first couple of weeks, but has managed to right the ship somewhat in recent times. To my eye, he benefits a lot from playing with Phanuef and Iginla and would probably be sunk if forced to play on another pairing. If he stays healthy, his acquisition won't prove to be overly crippling (he's better than Zyuzin afterall), but I still don't like his pricetag, or the fact his 4M will be on the books next season.
Of course, Nolan is another matter. Excepting, perhaps, a couple of games here and there, Buster's been a bust.
Sutter has liked Nolan since coaching him in San Jose. He tried to get him at the deadline last February, but Nolan asked the Coyotes Franchise not to be traded due to some family issues.
The danger here might be the clouding of what Nolan is with what he used to be. The former #1 draft pick has twice scored 40+ goals, and 7 times topped the 20 goal mark. However, age and injuries have slowed Nolan considerably over the years. He took the lock-out and the entire 05/06 season off to rest his ailing knees. The 76 games he played last year represented the most he'd managed in a single season since 2000.
As a result, Nolan hasn't been an offensive force for nearly a decade. His last 40 goal year was in that same 99/00 season, when he played 78 contests. Since then, his totals have steadily declined: 24 goals, 23 goals, 22, 7 (in just 14 games), 19 and 16 from 01 to 07, respectively...
If Nolan succumbs to age and either doesn't play much or well, the Flames will have a big gaping hole on the right side of their roster (again).
Was my common-sense prophecy back in the summer. And, lo and behold, the Flames once again have David Moss as a 2nd line Rwer while another aging vet vainly tries to keep his head above water in the bottom 6.
If you ignore his lone good performance against the Oilers, Nolan has pretty much stunk this season. His production rates are laughable and his GF/60 rate is a pedestrian 2.40 (despite spending a lot of time with Langkow and Huselius to start the year). As it stands, his 6 points in 20 games projects to a 8 goal, 24 point season. To put that into perspective, Even Amonte managed 10 goals and 30 points last year.
Another gamble coming up snake-eyes for Daryl is the retaining of Yelle and Nilson (and Primeau and Godard and Smith). The so-called "4th liners" have been detriments for the Flames. Yelle has become very Friesen-like: okay on the PK, but so utterly useless otherwise that it completely out-weighs his "okayness" short-handed. The former defensive specialists game has really, really tailed off the last few years and it looks like he's about ready to be put out to pasture. Guys like Nilson and Primeau, on the other hand, have forever been fringe NHLers and are the type of guys you MIGHT sign in February for a play-off run because your rookie has tailed off or you're team has injury concerns. Altogether, Primeau, Nilson, Yelle and Smith have played 57 games so far, produced 4 points total (1 goal) and are a cumulative -3. The cap-hit for their combined salaries is 4.288M. Nilson and Primeau's contracts extend beyond this year. Not good.
Fat-Headed
On that note, it would be negligent of me not to re-iterate the top-heavy-ness of this roster.
Observe:
Raw stats in front, production rates in back. As you can see, Iginla, Tanguay, Langkow and Lombardi are getting the job done at ES, while Huselius, Langkow and Tanguay are carrying the mail on the PP.
Juice, Conroy, Nolan and Moss have been disappointments at ES while Iginla and Phaneuf should certainly be better 5on4. Nolan and Conroy's rates are complete garbage considering their positions in the line-up, while, as mentioned, the Flames collection of tertiary forwards are complete non-entities offense-wise (whatever the circumstance). Anders Eriksson's PP production looks gawdy, but is an effect of a tiny sample size. Matthew Lombardi's ESP efficiency is particularly notable given the rates of his typical linemates (Nystrom, Moss, Nolan, Nilson).
Going forward, the Flames will need Phaneuf and Iginla to be better on the PP and should probably up Lombardi's TOI (his PP rate is crappy, but that has a lot to do with this nominal 5on4 ice-time and teammates). Swapping Nolan for Moss on Langkow's unit seems the right thing to do, although the difference between their ES rates is almost insignificant (although it was probably larger before Nolans 2 point outburst versus the Oil). Conroy's ES efficacy isn't even as good as Eric Nystrom's so far, and he's spent a bunch of time between the two best producers on the team. How's that for a resounding indictment?
Iginla and a couple others are carrying this club in Atlasian fashion, particularly 5on5. An injury or an extended cold stretch by Tanguay or Jarome is exceedingly bad news for the Flames, particularly since I can't foresee a big rebound by the likes of Yelle, Nilson, Primeau, Smith, Godard, Conroy or Nolan. Moss should be a bit better than he has been, though I think his rates suit a player of his skill-set and caliber. Ditto with Nystrom, who has been som
ewhat of a pleasant surprise given his early exit from the pre-season in September (it goes to show that the Flames probably have a couple of replacement level kids on the farm that are being held back by guys like Nilson and Yelle).The Flames grasp on capable offensive production is a tenuous one. They're a teetering fat head on a thin neck waiting to be blown over by a stiff breeze. If the heavy lifters stop being anything but elite, or if the bottom half of the roster can't get it's act together, Calgary's GD might well sink further into the red.
Defense
The Flames zone has been a bit of a chaos realm during the first 20. Initially, guys like Aucoin and Eriksson were doing their best Andrei Zyuzin impressions. Robyn Regehr struggled through a majority of first 6 weeks. Hale is what he is - a fringe NHLer. Kipper's issues have been documented above. The PK has personnel and systemic weaknesses. Only Phaneuf, Sarich and, perhaps, Warrener have consistently delivered as promised on the back-end so far.
From Behind the net, here's each blueliners GA/60 rates (ES), Quality of Comp and GA/60 (SH):
Phaneuf - 2.01, 0.06, 13.18
Regehr - 2.49, 0.02, 8.65
Aucoin - 2.33, 0.03, 11.99
Sarich - 2.04, 0.04, 8.86
Eriksson - 2.89, 0.00, 6.18
Warrener - 2.32, -0.16, 4.27
Hale - 2.03, -0.17, 0.00
Phaneuf is good at ES, but still terrible at killing penalties. Aucoin isn't that good in either situation. Regehr and Sarich's PK GA rates are also way too high for a couple of guys who are supposed to "specialize" in that sort of thing. Also, the fact that Reggie has the second highest GA rate at ES, even though he isn't facing the toughest competition, is really indicative of his lackluster play so far. This is especially pronounced when you look at his negative corsi* number (-3.3). The only other guys in the red by this measure on the team are Eric Godard (-5.0), Stephane Yelle (-0.8), Wayne Primeau (-11.9), Mark Smith (-5.4) and Eric Nystrom (-2.2). In short, not good company for Regehr to be keeping. His fellow blueliners all have fairly decent corsi numbers by comparison:
Phanuef +11.0
Warrener +10.0
Eriksson +6.1
Hale +7.4
Aucoin +7.0
Sarich +3.3
*(if you have no idea what "corsi" is, check out this post.)
Yup. The PK is brutal almost across the board (except for Warrener, curiously) and the Flames previously elite shut-down defenseman has been bad by just about every measure you can find. These stats will likely improve when Kipper finds himself, but, and not incidentally, Kippers numbers will probably improve once Regehr gets his shit together. It's a bit of chicken and egg sort of thing.
Are the Flames doing anything well?
Not really. One can point to some individual performances (Iginla, Tanguay, Lombardi, Langkow, Phaneuf), but Calgary doesn't seem to be excelling at much in terms global, team-wide metrics. They are tending to out-shoot their opponents, though not by any great degree. Probably the most encouraging stat is the 39 GF at ES, good for 4th best in the league (Thank you Jarome). The Flames are actually +6 in terms of ES GD, which indicates a potential upswing in fortunes if the PP and PK ever become half-way respectable. The problem being, I was saying stuff like that about the road record and the PK last year, with expectations that they would improve and they never did...
And so...
One might imagine Jim Playfair secretly chuckling to himself at night these days, no doubt feeling personally vindicated by the fact that the team has looked no better under Keenan in the first 20 than it did under Nervous Jimmy during the final 20 last season. I still dislike how Playfair handled the team and I like a lot of Keenan's bench-management. However, there needs to be some kind of marked improvement in this club very quickly or Keenan won't be immune to criticism for much longer. The roster has some issues and some difference-makers have under-delivered. As such, the Flames have dug themselves an ugly hole through the initial quarter of the year and it's going to take a mighty turn-around to dig themselves back out of it.
Update - Matt has his "Flames Thru 20" post up. Of course, it's better and more succinct than mine.
