If you have aspirations of making the playoffs, even in a season where most had you out of it early, you had better beat bad teams.
The Sharks are about as bad as they come these days in the National Hockey League.
Calgary dominated the first 40 minutes, but weren’t rewarded as they had a 2-1 lead despite a huge lead in shots and scoring chances.
But instead of an easy cushion they ground out another close Calgary Flames win, beating the Sharks 3-1 with two goals from Jonathan Huberdeau and some heroic last minute saves from Dustin Wolf.
The improbable season continues!
The Lineup
No change to the lineup after the break, as the team sticks with the same 18 skaters and starting goaltender that we saw against Chicago on the 21st.
No change to the top line with Nazem Kadri between Jonathan Huberdeau and Martin Pospisil, Mikael Backlund back with Blake Coleman and Matt Coronato, a third line with Connor Zary between Yegor Sharangovich and Jakob Pelletier, and Kevin Rooney with Ryan Lomberg and Walker Duehr.
One the blueline we see Rasmus Andersson and Kevin Bahl. Mackenzie Weegar with Joel Hanley (Daniil Miromanov scratched). And Jake Bean with Brayden Pachal on the third pairing.
Dustin Wolf stays in the nets after holding the fort in a third period for a win over Chicago.
Pre Game Stats Dive
Now four games into segment four on the season, and the Flames have some disturbing numbers appearing.
Five on Five Per 60 Stats:
| Segment | CF60 | CA60 | SF60 | SA60 | GF60 | GA60 | xGF60 | xGA60 | HDCF60 | HDCA60 |
| 1-10 | 58.9 | 66.5 | 26.3 | 32.3 | 2.3 | 2.2 | 2.4 | 2.6 | 10.5 | 10.4 |
| 11-20 | 64.0 | 57.7 | 31.1 | 27.8 | 1.8 | 1.3 | 2.3 | 2.5 | 9.6 | 9.7 |
| 21-30 | 64.2 | 55.0 | 27.0 | 25.1 | 1.7 | 2.8 | 2.4 | 2.2 | 10.6 | 10.0 |
| 31-40 | 59.3 | 56.0 | 26.1 | 28.2 | 2.9 | 1.8 | 2.4 | 2.6 | 7.9 | 12.6 |
The Flames are giving up more and more as the season rolls along.
In the fourth segment (4 games) they have had a boost in their expected goals against to 2.6 (matching the first segment, and way up from the third ten game set). Additionally (and logically), they have given up way more high danger chances / 60 than we’ve seen all season, ballooning to 12.6 against per 60, compared to, on average, 10 per 60 in the previous 30 games. Relying on goaltenders more and more.
How about Split Stats?:
| SH% | SV% | CF% | SF% | GF% | xGF% | HDCF% | PDO |
| 8.7% | 93.3% | 47.0% | 44.9% | 51.4% | 47.8% | 50.3% | 102.0 |
| 5.8% | 95.2% | 52.6% | 52.9% | 57.7% | 48.7% | 49.7% | 101.0 |
| 6.3% | 88.8% | 53.8% | 51.9% | 37.8% | 52.1% | 51.5% | 95.1 |
| 11.2% | 93.8% | 51.4% | 48.1% | 62.5% | 47.8% | 38.6% | 105.0 |
The Flames are certainly getting more puck luck in segment four.
Their shooting percentage was bound to improve, and it has, almost doubling from the third set of ten games. Their team five on five save percentage has also bounced back to 94% from 89% in the segment three. With that their PDO has bounced way up to 105.0, which is unsustainable as hell.
Their expected goal split continues to be under the 50% mark, with a small reprieve in segment three.
Wranglers Update
The Wranglers sputtered a little and out of the Xmas break winning just one of their last five contests. That’s certainly a dip from a team that has been a wagon from the beginning of the season.
The team has scored two or less goals in all four losses, something you’d expect with Matt Coronato, Jakob Pelletier and Walker Duehr all in Calgary.
The offence is going dry.
Rory Kerins has three points in the five games, and has been held pointless in three of the contests.
Dryden Hunt just two points in five games, William Stromgren with two points as well.
As I said … somewhat inevitable.
Wolf’s Start
Needed to be very good in the game’s first two minutes as the Flames came out flat as a pancake.
Then didn’t need to even be in the net for the rest of the first period.
The second period was similar, honestly. The Sharks better in the first few shifts, and get rewarded with a Celebrini powerplay goal, and then very little to do the rest of the way.
But how about those two saves in the final minute of the game with the San Jose net empty? Absolute larceny.
All told the Sharks generate 2.02 in expected goals in all situations, and Wolf was excellent in only giving up the one San Jose tally.
Huberdeau’s Comments
Jonathan Huberdeau’s comment at practice on Friday suggesting his current play is the best he’s ever played (not just in Calgary) had reporters and radio personalities talking, and got me thinking.
If he’s improved defensively (not much doubt), how do you value that in a contract that is clearly too steep. If a player is worth say $8.5M to be an 80 point player that is one dimensional (you may already disagree with that assessment), then if a player puts up 60 points but can be relied on two ways is he a $7M player? $7.5M? $6M?.
The Flames aren’t going to find value on this contract, but if he’s found some offence and is playing better one can hope that the gap shrinks from say $4.5M to maybe something closer to $3M (value vs price tag).
Odds and Sods
And speaking of Jonathan Huberdeau; of course he opens the scoring again, scoring his 14th to put the Flames out in front. At the tail end of the game he scored the empty netter for his 15th. He’s now on a 63 point pace on the season. It’s not 115, but it’s better than 45. … What a hit by Brayden Pachal on Grundstrum in the first period. Clean hit on a player fishing for the puck, but brutal. Throw back hit, and ready to drop the mitts and answer for it. … Man are the Sharks terrible. Just terrible. That first period was a joke. A team that could finish would have been up 4-0 after 20. … Flames full marks for a 2-1 lead through two periods. With the Sharks tying it up early in the period in a game that should be over, the Flames could have folded, but they didn’t. Got back to their game and dominated the rest of the period (not to the same extent as the first). … Mikael Backlund with his 207th of his career tonight. He sits 10th overall in franchise history, and he’s about to do some rapid climbing. He’s only three goals back of Johnny Gaudreau, five goals back of Sean Monahan, six goals back of Al MacInnis, and eight goals back of Lanny McDonald. How’s that for a run of names in Flames history? After that a bigger jump to Gary Roberts who is 50 goals clear of Backlund. … A clean third period for the Flames. They didn’t give up much, killed a penalty and then got some keys saves from Dustin Wolf late to preserve the win.
Fancy Stats
Another one of those nights where the stats match the eye test 100%. The Flames completely dominated this one, pretty much from start to finish and the numbers reflect that. The Flames, five on five, had 58% (68%/50%/45%) of the shot attempts, 63% of the high danger chances, and 66% of the expected goals. In all situations they had 59% of the shot attempts, 64% of the high danger chances and 73% of the expected goals.
Individually, the Flames were led by Yegor Sharangovich posting an xGF% of 92% on the night. His linemate Connor Zary was a smidge behind, also at 92%. Martin Pospisil, Jakob Pelletier and Nazem Kadri were all above 80%. Only five players finished under 50% on the night; Walker Duehr, Kevin Rooney, Kevin Bahl, Rasmus Andersson and Ryan Lomberg.
