Dallas. Colorado. Even the Toronto Maple Leafs. Each of those clubs made the playoffs, and then fell back the following season.
The upstart Calgary Flames packed up their dressing room on Tuesday, completing their exit interviews and facing the media for one last time. It had taken a Herculean effort, and to the eyes of the fancy stats community, plenty of good fortune to make the playoffs this season.
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But how do these Calgary Flames avoid the fate that befell Colorado and Dallas this past season — and Toronto the year before that — as young playoff teams that failed to live up to billing the following season?
“It’s going to be harder next year,” admits Calgary GM Brad Treliving. “Look at the West — the Stanley Cup champions didn’t make the playoffs. San Jose has been a real good team. Dallas. That damned out of town scoreboard, they never lost the last six weeks. Colorado… Look at what happened in Edmonton.
“Do the math: only eight teams get in,” he said. “You’re either getting better or you’re going the other way. We have to find a way to improve.”
Treliving went out of his way to repeat this sentiment Tuesday in his end of season briefing: “Our plan has not altered. To me, we’re still climbing that mountain,” he said. “You have to recognize where you are … in the development curve. To me, we are still very much in the development stage. We’re starting to establish a young core here.”
So, Step 1 is accomplished. The GM isn’t under some false impression that he is one or two players away from a Cup contender. But what of many statistical deficiencies that Calgary overcame this season?
There isn’t a chance they’ll win with a shooting percentage of over 10.5% again — when the norm is about 8% — and a 45 per cent Corsi again next season. So how does Calgary improve those possession numbers, so as not to be faced with being a statistical outlier for consecutive seasons, something Toronto and Colorado both failed at?
“We’ll look at why teams won, why teams didn’t win,” Treliving said. “We have a pretty good idea internally at areas we need to address. No question, we have to take a step. We have to take a step.”
So we return to the statement that dogged this Flames team all year long. “Is this sustainable?”
Well, every year someone proves that one of 30 teams can defy the stats. I sometime ago bought into the idea that this was simply Calgary’s year and we should just enjoy it, rather than always raise the wet-blanket spectre of next season. And so we did, right through the second round of the playoffs.
But today, we embark upon next year country. This won’t work for two years straight. Or, at least, no team in recent history has been able to be an outlier in consecutive seasons. With some help from hockeyanalysis.com, here are the 2014-15 Flames stats we’re talking about:
• Goals For Percentage — Ranked 21st at 49.3
• Shots For/60 Minutes — Ranked 28th at 25.5
• Shots For/60 Minutes — Ranked 21st at 29.6
• Corsi — Ranked 28th at 44.5% (5-on-5)
• Shooting Percentage — Ranked 2nd at 10.5%
Those are some of the stats that the analytics community rightfully point to. But this is the one that would scare me the most if I were the Flames.
Calgary’s top eight scorers this season all had career seasons in points, a group that includes rookie Johnny Gaudreau. That allowed Calgary to finish seventh in the NHL in goals per game. Yet, it took 10 third-period comebacks (third in NHL) to make the playoffs in Game 81 of the season.
That is a confluence of circumstances that will be difficult to repeat, so the question becomes, how does Calgary lead more games after 40 minutes? Well, it took career years from every single one of their top players just to be the come-from-behind team Calgary was, so if the Flames require more goals earlier in games, they’ll likely have to acquire those from outside. That, and count on a big rookie year from Sam Bennett, which is not unreasonable.
“Next year we have to make another step. There are a ton of good teams that didn’t make the playoffs this year and they’ll want to be back,” captain Mark Giordano told reporters in Calgary. “The message has to be, it was a great year, it was a fun year, but … it’s going to be different next year. When we play teams, they’ll be looking at us as a team that went to the second round. It will be that much harder to get back.”
Sean Monahan’s stellar sophomore season was a pleasant surprise, and another outlier. Gaudreau’s play in his first pro season was stunning. He never faded, like so many college kids do. A two-goalie system with neither Jonas Hiller nor Karri Ramo being considered a Grade A No. 1 somehow worked in Calgary, where usually it does not.
And they played hard. Boy, did the Flames play hard.
“We had the pedal down for, at least, the last 40 games of the season,” said Treliving. “This team really emptied the tank to get into the post season.”
Emptied the tank of gas, or of luck?
Whatever, it will be Treliving’s job to tank this club up by October.