Oilers v. Sharks - 2 Kings 17:1-6

During the twenty-first year of the rule of Glen Sather, Kevin Lowe was promoted to the position of general manager and Sather moved on to become the richest manger in the league in New York City. Lowe managed for nine years and he did evil in the eyes of Yahweh. It was unlike the evil of his predecessor, but it was nonetheless displeasing to Yahweh.

Oilers v. Kings - Psalm 102:11-14

It seems that all of our days are filled with darkness;
yet another season where hope withers away like grass.
But we acknowledge that you, O Yahweh, sit as king forever!
Though the Kings of Los Angeles may rise and fall,
your reign will endure forever!

Preceded by: Oilers v. Kings - Psalm 102:8-10
Followed by: Oilers v. Kings - Psalm 102:15-17

Oilers v. Coyotes - Nahum 3:18-19

O leader of the National Hockey League, you were caught sleeping;
the owners you chose years ago, you have now disgraced.
Coyotes fans are scattered all around
with no one to gather them.

Avalanche v. Flames - Scoring Chances #21

Tm	P	Time	Note	COL						Opponent
CGY	1	17:38		10	22	37	41	54		3	4	21	22	25	34	4v5
COL	1	13:50		22	27	37	40	41	55	5	7	16	23	25	34	5v5
COL	1	12:17		5	8	26	41	52	54	3	12	20	21	28	34	5v5
COL	1	12:15		5	8	26	41	44	54	3	12	20	21	28	34	5v5
COL	1	12:04		5	8	26	41	44	54	3	12	20	22	28	34	5v5
COL	1	12:02	Goal	5	8	26	41	44	54	3	12	20	22	28	34	5v5
CGY	1	11:10		5	7	28	41	44	54	4	6	11	12	24	34	5v5
CGY	1	7:30		9	23	27	41	44		3	16	25	28	34		4v4
COL	1	3:45		8	22	25	26	27	41	5	7	12	23	24	34	5v5
CGY	1	1:29		22	27	37	40	41	55	5	7	15	17	22	34	5v5
COL	2	12:55		8	22	26	27	41	54	3	11	12	21	28	34	5v5
COL	2	12:26		8	22	26	27	41	54	3	11	12	21	28	34	5v5
CGY	2	11:48		7	8	22	27	40	41	5	7	16	23	25	34	5v5
CGY	2	8:23	Goal	5	8	22	26	41	54	4	6	12	20	21	34	5v5
CGY	2	7:26		7	27	37	41	44	55	4	6	11	20	24	34	5v5
COL	2	6:43		5	9	10	23	40	41	3	15	17	22	28	34	5v5
CGY	2	5:43		5	9	23	27	40	41	4	6	17	20	21	34	5v5
CGY	2	2:44	Goal	8	9	23	26	27	41	4	16	17	28	34		5v4
COL	2	2:02	Goal	22	25	26	41	44	55	3	11	12	24	28	34	5v5
COL	2	1:08		8	22	26	27	41	54	4	16	23	25	28	34	5v5
COL	2	0:55	Goal	5	8	16	23	40	41	4	6	17	22	34		5v4
COL	3	17:57		5	7	26	27	40	41	4	7	15	17	24	34	5v5
CGY	3	12:36		5	8	26	27	41	54	5	6	12	20	21	34	5v5
CGY	3	11:24		22	25	37	40	41	44	5	7	15	17	22	34	5v5
COL	3	10:13		5	23	27	41	54		3	4	12	21	25	34	4v5
COL	3	7:50		8	22	26	27	41	54	3	12	20	21	28	34	5v5
CGY	3	3:28		9	10	16	22	23	41	3	5	16	23	25	34	5v5
CGY	3	2:59		5	8	26	27	41	54	4	12	20	21	28	34	5v5
CGY	3	2:58		5	8	26	27	41	54	4	12	20	21	28	34	5v5

#	Player	EV			PP			SH
5	B. CLARK	18:26	6	6	2:40	1	0	3:02	1	0
7	T. HENSICK	5:02	1	3	0:00	0	0	0:00	0	0
8	W. WOLSKI	16:59	9	5	2:08	1	1	0:04	0	0
9	M. DUCHENE	14:23	1	3	1:06	0	1	0:20	0	0
10	K. CUMISKEY	14:49	1	1	1:49	0	0	2:01	0	1
16	D. TUCKER	14:58	0	1	2:54	1	0	0:20	0	0
22	S. HANNAN	24:45	7	5	0:31	0	0	2:58	0	1
23	M. HEJDUK	14:04	1	3	3:02	1	1	2:43	1	0
25	C. STEWART	9:56	2	1	0:07	0	0	0:00	0	0
26	P. STASTNY	18:27	11	4	1:15	0	1	2:21	0	0
27	K. QUINCEY	22:03	7	8	1:59	0	1	2:40	1	0
28	D. KOCI	2:29	0	1	0:00	0	0	0:00	0	0
37	R. O'REILLY	13:36	1	3	1:24	0	0	1:53	0	1
40	M. SVATOS	9:02	3	4	2:07	1	0	0:00	0	0
41	C. ANDERSON	49:41	13	12	4:16	1	1	6:00	1	1
44	R. WILSON	15:22	4	4	0:07	0	0	0:04	0	0
52	A. FOOTE	4:13	1	0	0:00	0	0	1:15	0	0
54	D. JONES	15:09	8	5	0:00	0	0	2:00	1	1
55	C. MCLEOD	13:00	2	2	0:11	0	0	2:19	0	0

Period	Totals		EV		PP		5v3 PP		SH		5v3 SH
1	6	4	6	3	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0
2	6	5	5	4	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
3	3	5	2	5	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0
4	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Totals	15	14	13	12	1	1	0	0	1	1	0	0

If you watched this game, you'd never come away with the idea that the Avalanche outchanced the Flames at even strength. They were outshot 29-21. They lost the Corsi battle 55-35 and even if you take out the blocked shots they were still down 35-31. But, my goodness, that's a lot of blocked shots. And many of them happened when Calgary would normally have generated a chance. Three or four times the Flames came into the Avalanche zone 3 on 2 and ended up getting a shot blocked (one good example was with about 13:50 left in the second period). It was uncanny but I think it had as much to do with poor shot selection by the Flames as it did any superior blocking talent by the Avalanche. I mean, these are odd man rushes! You've got more guys than them! Find a lane!

Regardless, the Avalanche did outchance the Flames and played what I thought was a pretty solid game. Even though they were often playing in their zone, the Flames were rarely able to move the puck into dangerous scoring areas and although Craig Anderson had to play well to preserve the win this was game was more of a "team effort" than some of the other Avalanche wins. The team offence was, however, essentially three forwards at EV. Stastny, Jones and the wonderful Wojtek Wolski gave the Flames fits all evening long. It's only by some cosmic joke that Stastny and Wolski ended the night -1. Or at least, that's what I've decided to credit for Quincey breaking his stick on the power play in the second period.

That broken stick play wasn't the funniest of the evening however. Late in the first Quincey was playing a Flame behind the net and the forward he was defending goes down. Immediately Quincey stops playing and looks to the ref to complain about a penalty that wasn't being called. What a guy. Focus on the game until you hear the whistle, son! Just like your buddy Scott Hannan who, in the dying seconds, most definitely deserved an interference penalty. There were only two or three seconds left so Hannan, correctly, decided that the only thing he needed to do was keep the Flame forward in front of him. So he used both hands. This is truly something the NHL should look at. I myself would be very much in favour of any penalty called in the last minute of the third period or overtime resulting in an automatic penalty shot. On more than one occasion I've seen players decide that the rulebook no longer matters when protecting a lead in the dying seconds, and the unfortunate thing is that they're exactly right. It should probably be changed.

Oilers v. Blackhawks - Mark 8:1-13

In the evening a large crowd had gathered. They had no reason to be proud of their hockey team so Quinn called his players together and said, "I have compassion for these people; they have been following this team for three years and have not once tasted the playoffs. If we send them off to another summer without playoffs they may break down and start cheering for a young, better, more exciting team."

Flames Chances - Games 11 to 20

For those who are unfamiliar with the scoring chance metric, a player is given a chance any time someone on the ice has a chance to score. He is given a "chance for" if someone on his team has a chance to score and a "chance against" if the opposing team has a chance to score, just like +/-. The graph is broken down into three game states, EV situations, PP situations (excluding 5v3) and SH situations (excluding 5v3). At EV I've also included a "scoring chance percentage" which is the number of "chances for" divided by the the total number of chances for both teams when a given player is on the ice. The players are all represented by their jersey numbers and initials. Today, we're going to be looking at the Calgary Flames. Special thanks go out especially to Kent Wilson who has been counting the chances are every Flames game this year as well as Dennis King for starting the scoring chances trend last season and Vic Ferrari for creating an application that makes the game-to-game tallying much easier. Below I'll present the raw data for games 10-20 and then 1-20 (for those interested, I also did an analysis of games 1-10 earlier in the season):

(Missing Game 14 at St Louis)


The Flames have fallen back to the rest of the Northwest division over these last ten games. I haven't yet tallied up Minnesota's chances but if their first ten games were any indication the results won't be good. Through games 11-20 of their respective schedules the Avalanche had a chance percentage of 46.0% while the Oilers were at 42.5%. The Flames are currently in the lead at 46.2%. The Northwest is not a very good division this year and may, in fact be the worst division in the NHL. Where we once has the SouthLEAST I think we may now have the NorthMESSED. I'm so clever. Anyway, because of this situation Calgary has a very good chance at taking the third playoff seed with a club that's played pretty poorly over the first quarter of the season whether their performance improves over the rest of they year or not.

These last ten games have looked a lot like the first ten games for Jarome Iginla and Olli Jokinen. Both players continue to struggle and Jokinen continues to struggle more than Iginla. The trend for Iginla is worrying at this point though at least he has some outs. He's been taking a lot of defensive zone assignments, taking on some of the tougher competition and he's still been scoring at even strength. He hasn't been the dominant player the Flames are paying him to be, but he's still helping the team to win games. Olli Jokinen... well... not so much. He's only put up 7 points at even strength which leaves him in a tie for 140th in the league despite playing over 14 even strength minutes per game (second most among Flames forwards). Matt Fenwick mentioned that apparently Jokinen thinks he's been unlucky so far this year. Now, it may be true that he's hit some posts so far this year but his PDO number of 102.8 suggests that any regression may not help him out too much (though a lot of this is goaltending). His starting locations have also started to drift up closer to a 50/50 split between offensive and defensive zone starts without the results showing much improvement. Olli Jokinen is, to put it kindly in case his mother is reading, a complete and utter failure.

Another Flames stalwart having some difficulties over the last few games has been Robyn Regehr. In his recap of the 19th game against the Avalanche, Kent mentioned that Phaneuf and Regehr were given the tough match-ups for the first time in a while and "got their heads beat in." Now, this was certainly true of that game but that pair had also been hammered in a couple of games before that (game 15 v. New York and 17 at Buffalo) which would seem to imply that even against easier competition the pair was struggling. So is this the case? Accoring to Behind the Net (which I've relied upon a bunch throughout this piece for statistical information) Regehr and Phaneuf are in a dead heat with Cory Sarich (who's doing even worse than them... anything below 40% suggests to me that you're in way over your head) for 2nd, 3rd and 4th toughest competition among Flames defenders, well back of Jay Bouwmeester. Regehr, Bouwmeester and Phaneuf have also been Sutter's go-to options for defensive zone face-offs, and have a substantially more challenging d-zone to o-zone faceoff ratio than the other defenders. Taken together, this suggests to me that they've been logging pretty challenging minutes over the course of the season but haven't seen much success. This is fine if they're being paid two or three million bucks per season but when they're combining for over ten million per, well they need to be better.

Next up, the season results to this point:



After the first ten games I mentioned both Craig Conroy and Curtis Glencross as guys that were just dominating in this particular statistic. Although they've come back a bit since then, they're both more than 5% clear of the next closest forward (and the only comparable defender, Staffan Kronwall, really isn't playing much at all) in terms of scoring chance percentage, which, after a quarter of the season, is pretty darn impressive.

As I said at the outset, the Flames have some problems. They've spent a lot of money on a few players and a lot of those guys aren't performing up to expectations. Players like Iginla, Phaneuf and Regehr may in fact get better. Jokinen and Sarich probably need to be moved if the cost isn't prohibitive. At the very least Sutter needs to realize their struggles and move them into easier roles (he seems to be doing this with Jokinen but Olli, so far, isn't responding).

Avalanche Chances - Games 11 to 20

For those who are unfamiliar with the scoring chance metric, a player is given a chance any time someone on the ice has a chance to score. He is given a "chance for" if someone on his team has a chance to score and a "chance against" if the opposing team has a chance to score, just like +/-. The graph is broken down into three game states, EV situations, PP situations (excluding 5v3) and SH situations (excluding 5v3). At EV I've also included a "scoring chance percentage" which is the number of "chances for" divided by the the total number of chances for both teams when a given player is on the ice. The players are all represented by their jersey numbers and initials. Special thanks are due to Dennis King for starting the trend towards counting scoring chances and to Vic Ferrari for creating an application that makes the game-to-game tallying much easier. I myself have been keeping tracking scoring chances for the Colorado Avalanche this year. The first table I'll present here is for games 11-20 and the second for the first twenty games the Avalanche have played this year. If you're curious about how the Avalanche did in the first ten games, I wrote about that earlier this year.



The Avalanche compiled a record of 5-4-1 in games 11-20 compared to a record of 7-1-2 in their first ten. Yet, the scoring chances remained about equal in both segments (46.3% in the first ten and 46.0% in the second). Thanks to some wonderful work by JLikens we know that the Avalanche haven't been doing well territorially when the game is tied. In fact, they were the worst team in the league. This tells us two things for sure. Firstly, that the Colorado Avalanche were a very lucky team in the first ten games of the season (or, if you prefer, they were riding a hot goalie and getting timely scoring, same difference as far as I'm concerned, either way, it ain't continuing forever). Secondly, that territorial advantage generally and outshooting in particular is no guarantee that you're going to win games. Still, Tyler Dellow has shown that, more often than not, the team that outshoots wins the game. The same is most certainly true of outchancing and so far the Avalanche haven't been doing much of either. Many have predicted that the Avalanche will not be able to keep up their early pace and you can count me among them. Nonetheless, I expect to see a lot of ten game segments where the Avalanche put together a record between three and six wins. The road back to the playoff bubble will likely be slow and plodding, but they'll eventually get there.

As for some of the specific players, I noted in my first overview that John-Michael Liles isn't a very good hockey player. He only played four games in this segment and he probably was not fully recovered from his injury but that 20% number is just comically bad. If the Avs could pick one contract to jettison surely it would be the one they've given to Liles. The rest of the defenders had a pretty good time of things. Kyle Quincey's numbers aren't particularly good but he has been taking on tough opposition for the first time in his career so some struggles are understandable. Ryan Wilson has been playing well in a depth role which bodes well for his future and Adam Foote had a very nice bounce-back performance from the first segment.

After a strong first segment, Matt Duchene really tailed off here. His season so far reminds me a lot of watching Sam Gagner's first year with the Oilers. A legitimately good start that quickly faded into poor play because he simply isn't ready for the NHL. There's enough skill that he's able to make a breathtaking play every now and again but, for the most part, the kid gets clobbered by players who are bigger, stronger and just plain old better than anything he's seen to this point in his hockey career. He'll be a fantastic player one day, but that day isn't today. Or tomorrow. Or, if he's anything like Gagner, probably not for a while after that.

Ryan O'Reilly also came back a little bit, but not nearly as much as Duchene. Of the two players, I think I've been most impressed with O'Reilly though the junior results and the draft pedigree lead me to believe that Duchene will have the better career. Regardless, what a fantastic draft for the Avalanche this past June.


A lot of the data here is very similar to what we saw in the last ten games. Ryan Wilson is showing promise while John-Michael Liles is showing just how bad a well-paid NHLer can be at EV. But my goodness look at Wojtek Wolski. According to Behind the Net he's faced the fourth toughest competition among Avalanche forwards (although Vic Ferrari has recently given us some helpful reminders about how these numbers can sometimes trick us) and he's been starting pretty consistently in the defensive end of the ice (at the time of writing he has been on the ice for 26 more D-zone draws than O-zone draws which is the second toughest differential among Avs forwards). And he's just ripping the cover off the ball. The best scoring chance percentage on the team, the second best Corsi rate (-6.52/60... my goodness the Avalanche are bad) and tied for 7th in the league in even strength points. That is one very good player.