Calgary Flames

What the Quant Says

293 goals, 6th in the league, off 2.948 expected goals per 60 at even strength — 3rd in hockey.

At five-on-five it scored 196 against an expectation of 188.6. Seven goals of finishing gained, 11th in the league. This club created chances at nearly the highest rate in hockey and converted them at an ordinary one, which is the opposite of the usual complaint and a far better problem to have.

Elias Lindholm scored 42 goals at 17.9 per cent — the 93rd percentile — from a median of 23 feet with 56 per cent of his shots from the slot. Andrew Mangiapane scored 35 at 18.9 per cent, the 95th percentile, on 15:44 a night.

Johnny Gaudreau had 115 points and the highest even-strength scoring rate of the 393 qualified forwards. Matthew Tkachuk had 104 points and 60.9 per cent of the chances. Both are gone.

Jonathan Huberdeau arrives with 30 goals and 85 assists, and the 2nd-highest even-strength scoring rate in the league behind Gaudreau. Nazem Kadri arrives with 87 points off the 99th percentile of power-play time. Tyler Toffoli takes 9.70 shots per 60, the 86th percentile.

Mikael Backlund took 214 shots and scored twelve — 5.6 per cent, the 7th percentile. Blake Coleman took 212 and scored sixteen. The third line generated relentlessly and finished nothing, and it is the one unit that came back intact.

What the Scout Says

Huberdeau is the arrival and the profile is unusual: 85 assists, the second-highest even-strength scoring rate in the league, and the 7th-lowest ground covered of the 365 forwards the tracking follows. He plays a slow, heavy game inside the offensive zone and the value arrives once the puck stops moving. Whether that survives a move from the club that took 56.5 per cent of the chances to one that took 55.2 is the whole question.

Kadri is the other arrival and he is the more complete player of the two — 3.29 even-strength points per 60, a takeaway game, penalties drawn at the 94th percentile and taken at the 85th. He is in the middle of everything and he is 31, coming off a season 26 points better than any other in a thirteen-year career.

Lindholm is the best player who stayed: 42 goals at 17.9 per cent from twenty-three feet, 2:07 a night shorthanded, and no speed at all. He wins the position rather than the race.

Mangiapane is 5-10, scores from twenty-one feet, and carries Blake Coleman by sixteen points of chance share. Backlund shoots 214 times at 5.6 per cent and takes the puck away at the 90th percentile. Toffoli waits in one spot and shoots. Dube has the highest top speed of any Calgary forward and the 95th percentile in both bursts and ground covered, and the club just traded the centre he played best with.

Lucic and Lewis were a 40.4 per cent hole in a 111-point team.

What the Quant Says

208 goals against, 3rd in the league — off 2.404 expected goals against per 60 at even strength, 4th.

At five-on-five it conceded 139 against an expectation of 152.9. Fourteen goals better than the chances, which is the goaltending, and the chances were already among the best in the league.

Rasmus Andersson took 56.9 per cent of the expected goals across 1,435 minutes at 22:40 a night, with 46 assists. Noah Hanifin took 56.9 per cent across 1,424 with 48 points and 19 penalty minutes. They played 2,375 attempts together and neither cleared 300 apart from the other.

Chris Tanev finished plus-35 at thirty-two with 22 penalty minutes, killed 2:58 a night at the 96th percentile among defencemen, and recorded 1.86 hits per 60 — the 13th. He and Oliver Kylington played 1,937 attempts at 55.8 per cent, and Kylington is off the roster.

Nikita Zadorov is 6-7 and 255 pounds, took 58.9 per cent of the shot attempts — the highest of the 202 qualified defencemen — and blocked 2.35 shots per 60, the 4th-lowest. Only Quinn Hughes, Keith Yandle and Erik Karlsson went down in front of pucks less often, which for the largest defenceman in the league is the strangest pair of numbers in this book.

MacKenzie Weegar arrives from Florida having played 23:22 a night at 58.0 per cent of the chances, the 98th percentile, with 2.37 takeaways per 60 at the 98th. Erik Gudbranson has gone to Columbus, and the with-and-without-you data says Zadorov was carrying that pair.

What the Scout Says

Four genuine top-four defencemen and a 6-7 third-pair man who outshot the league.

Andersson and Hanifin are a pair in the strictest sense — 2,375 attempts together, fewer than 300 apart for either — and between them 98 points, 47 penalty minutes and 57.4 per cent of the chances. Andersson is the shot and the first pass; Hanifin is the feet, at the 96th percentile in top speed among defencemen and the 11th in blocks, because he does not need to lie down.

Tanev is the one this book would take. Plus-35 at thirty-two, 5.65 blocks per 60, 1.86 hits, 22 penalty minutes in 82 games, and three minutes a night on the second-best kill in hockey. He ends plays with position and a stick and he has done it for twelve years.

Zadorov is the curiosity: the largest defenceman in the league, top speed at the 93rd percentile among defencemen, ground covered at the 98th, hits at the 92nd — and blocks at the 4th-lowest of 202. He steps up instead of going down. It works, and it takes penalties at the 197th of 202.

Weegar arrives 6-0 and 206 with a 98th-percentile chance share and a 98th-percentile takeaway rate, from the club that led the league in chances. He is the most accomplished defenceman Calgary has acquired in years, and the number he brings with him is a Florida number.

What the Quant Says

Calgary's goaltending finished 13.9 goals ahead of the chances it faced, 5th in the league.

Jacob Markstrom went 37-15-9 with a .9219 and a 2.22 in 63 games, facing 1,754 shots — 28 a night — with 9 shutouts. All three of the wins, the shutouts and the save percentage are career highs, in his twelfth season.

His career line across 378 games is a .9118, and the two Calgary seasons bracket it: a .9044 in the first and a .9219 in the second.

Dan Vladar went 13-6-2 with a .9063 and a 2.75 in 23 games, with 2 shutouts on 608 shots — his first real NHL season at 24, after five games in Boston. A career .9022 across 28 games.

The caveat is the club and it is a large one. Calgary allowed 2.404 expected goals against per 60 at even strength, 4th in the league, took 55.2 per cent of the chances and had the 2nd-best penalty kill in hockey. Twenty-eight shots a night behind that is one of the friendlier creases in the league, and the plus-13.9 already accounts for it.

Markstrom is 32 and Vladar 25, and there is nothing else in the organisation. On a club that has just lost 219 points of forward, the crease is the part nobody is worried about, which is usually when a crease becomes the problem.

What the Scout Says

Markstrom is 6-6 and takes the net away by filling it from a deep, square stance rather than by challenging out. The rebound control is the part that improved after Vancouver and it is what makes the method work: an economical goaltender who does not scramble, on a club that does not make him.

Nine shutouts and 37 wins in a twelfth season is the sort of year that gets read as a leap and is more often a very good team meeting a goaltender at his peak. The plus-13.9 says the goaltending was genuinely better than the chances; the .9118 career line says how much of it to expect again.

Vladar is 6-5, deep, patient, and has 28 NHL games. He won 13 of 23 behind the fourth-best defensive structure in the league, which is what a competent backup does there and also what an ordinary one does.

There is nothing behind the two of them. On a club that just lost its two best forwards, that is the risk nobody in Calgary is talking about.

What the Quant Says

6th in the league at 7.314 expected goals per 60, over 4:37 a night.

Johnny Gaudreau took 2:57 a night and Matthew Tkachuk 2:55, and both are gone. Between them they were 219 points and the two men the unit ran through.

Elias Lindholm took 2:53 a night at the 83rd percentile among forwards and scored 10 power-play goals. Rasmus Andersson ran the point at 2:49, the 89th percentile among defencemen, with 38 per cent of his points coming on it — the 89th. Noah Hanifin took 1:50 at the 76th.

Nazem Kadri arrives having taken 3:53 a night — the 99th percentile among forwards — with 33 per cent of his points on the man advantage. He has been handed as much power-play time as almost anyone in hockey for three years, and whether Calgary can give him the same is the largest single question about the 87 points.

Jonathan Huberdeau arrives with 3:41 a night at the 97th percentile and 33 per cent of his points on it. Two men who both want the same 3:45, on a unit that just lost the two players it was designed around.

Andrew Mangiapane took 1:48 and scored 8, and only 20 per cent of his points came on the power play — the man least dependent on it is the one who scored 35.

What the Scout Says

The unit ran through Gaudreau and Tkachuk and both of them are gone, and it finished 6th.

Andersson is the point man and he is a good one: 38 per cent of his points on the man advantage, a 98.8 mph shot from fifty feet, and the sense to move it rather than fire it. Lindholm scored ten. Hanifin runs the second unit.

The problem arriving is not a shortage but a collision. Kadri has been given the 99th percentile of power-play time for three years and Huberdeau the 97th, and there is one first unit. One of them is going to play less power play than he has been used to, and both of their point totals are partly a function of it.

Mangiapane is the reminder in the other direction — 35 goals with only a fifth of his points on the man advantage, and 1:48 a night. The five-on-five scorer is the one who does not need the unit at all.

What the Quant Says

2nd in the league at 5.069 expected goals against per 60, over 5:03 a night.

Chris Tanev killed 2:58 a night, the 96th percentile among defencemen, with 5.65 blocks per 60 at the 86th and 22 penalty minutes in 82 games. Erik Gudbranson killed 2:55, the 94th, and has gone to Columbus. MacKenzie Weegar arrives having killed 2:46 in Florida, the 90th.

Elias Lindholm killed 2:07, the 95th percentile among forwards, and Mikael Backlund 2:03, the 93rd. A club that puts its 42-goal centre and its best defensive centre on the unit rather than protecting them from it, which is the same choice Carolina makes and it works for the same reason.

Blake Coleman killed 1:29 and Trevor Lewis 1:43 at the 81st percentile. Kevin Rooney arrives having killed 2:07 a night in New York, the 94th percentile among forwards, with a block rate at the 96th.

The reason it is needed is Nikita Zadorov, who takes 1.53 penalties per 60 — the 197th of 202 qualified defencemen — with a drawn-minus-taken of minus-0.96 at the 2nd percentile, and Milan Lucic, at the 87th percentile in penalties taken.

Losing Gudbranson costs this unit a genuine piece. Weegar replaces the minutes and is a different sort of killer.

What the Scout Says

Second in the league, and built the way the best ones are: the top centre and the shutdown centre both kill, and the defencemen who kill are the ones who defend rather than the ones who skate.

Tanev is the anchor — three minutes a night, blocks at the 86th percentile, and almost no fouling. Gudbranson took the other 2:55 and has gone; Weegar arrives having killed 2:46 in Florida and is a stick-and-anticipation killer rather than a blocking one, which changes the unit's character more than its minutes.

Lindholm and Backlund are the forward pair and both are above the 93rd percentile at the position. Rooney arrives as the fourth-line specialist: 2:07 a night in New York, blocks at the 96th percentile among forwards, and the second-lowest chance share of any qualified forward in the league, which is what that job does to a number.

Zadorov is why the unit works as hard as it does. So is Lucic. Both are worth carrying on a club that kills this well and neither would be anywhere else.