with vancouver taking over the top spot in the NW only a day or two ago, the talk around the watercoolers of flamesville is (for the most part) surprisingly positive. it seems the fans and pundits alike are thinking that the flames are underperforming down the stretch, while the canucks won't be able to maintain this level of winning into the playoffs.
well, i hope that everybody's right. but i'm awfully concerned that they're not... alot of people quote the corsi and other advanced statistics to prove that calgary is a better team on paper than they're displaying on the ice, and that sooner or later (and everyone is hoping SOONER) the wins will come more steadily.
as i understand it, the problem with the advanced stats, and looking at the team's potential, is that they don't apply to reality where the flames are concerned... they don't account for all the really stupid penalties calgary takes (i'm talking to you bertuzzi, dion, conroy). they don't account for the PP shooting blanks or the PK being less effective since the loss of lombardi (yeah, i said it). they also don't account for iggy and dion looking beyond terrible this season, that kipper sways from hot to cold without notice, and they sure don't account for the keenan line blender.
i've been accused in the past weeks of being a bandwagon jumper and that because of my current negative view on the flames i'm less of a "fan"; this theory is ludicrous to me. i love my team so much that it kills me to watch them suffer down the stretch. i actually just did the maths, thinking that the flames faltered after the ference/kobasew trade [thinking that the jokinen deal was a similar bad omen] but as it turns out, the C's have ended the season over .500 (*ahem*JUST) in the games after feb 10** over the past two seasons. this year we're 12-11 with 6 games left, so i would imagine there will be a couple of W's left in the tank.
either way, i worry about keenan's choices... i sincerely hope (yet doubt) that Qmac gets the start tonight. if not, i would imagine him entering tomorrow night's game by mid-second period.... not a good scene.
as for tonight, dallas has never been overly kind to the flambés but the southstars are currently decimated by injury... yeah, well ---so was san jose, and that didn't seem to invite any urgency by the boys.... so we''ll see i guess.
i've been fairly successful in being wrong when predicting a loss, so i'm gonna go ahead and do that right now. flames lose a tight one with turco getting peppered with shots, but doing a good job of keeping 'em out while kipper (yeah, you heard me --KIPPER) lets in a couple of softies that lead to the loss.
**because ference & kobasew were traded before the deadline, i used this date as a marker.
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4 comments:
Hi WI. There are two reasons that I like to look at things like corsi and shots +/-.
1.) It's a measurable and fairly repeatable representation of how the team's playing. It is easy for me as a Flames fan to say "we play well because we outshoot the opposition". When I talk to a Canucks fan about their team getting outshot, they feed me BS lines like "well Vancouver's system is to create fewer high-quality scoring chances in the slot by cycling down low and bla bla bla". Yeah. Ok. But if they were playing well they'd still shoot more often no matter what system they were using.
2.) For the most part, the shot clock reflects how I feel the game is going. For instance, I felt we carried the play all night long against San Jose. The shot clock reflected this. The score did not. I was watching Anaheim's 4-3 loss to Edmonton recently, where they took 54 shots against Roloson. Anaheim dominated. We dominated Detroit on the road trip (once we got out of that penalty parade) but they dominated us at home - both times the shot clock reflected this.
hey, R O welcome to hitthepost !!! :)
i totally see the value in the corsi numbers, and other advanced statistics such as GFON (which explains precisely the reason why i don't get nervous when conroy is on the ice, vs. when bertuzzi is). it's essentially +/- but more betterer.
;)
shot clock is pretty basic but not useless. obviously it counts actual scoring opportunities but it also counts those tricklers from the opposition blue line that happen to end up in the blue paint. so you have to take those numbers with a grain of salt.
i'm thinking about developping my own stat. it would be based on the guys i like vs. the guys i hate. i haven't put a lot of thought into it (i really just thought of it now), but it would somehow describe the level of excitement vs. the level of panic i get when they take the ice.
vandermeer would score high on the panic level, while glencross would top the charts on the excitement level.
;)
It's disappointing but for most of the year I've been nervous whenever Jarmoe's been on the ice. Here is hoping he turns it around, like, tomrrow.
cheers to that, my friend.
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