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By The Numbers: A Look At the Calgary Flames' 2013 1st Round Picks

July 9, 2013, 5:43 PM ET [30 Comments]
Todd Cordell
Columbus Blue Jackets Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
You can follow Todd on Twitter @ToddCordell!

The 2013 NHL Entry Draft is gone and passed and many people are starting to turn the page onto next year.

Before doing so, I figured it'd be good to take a look at how the Calgary Flames three 1st round picks fared last season using numbers and something that hasn't been done before.

Using season splits as well as some advanced stats, let's take a look at how the Flames big three, Sean Monahan, Emile Poirier and Morgan Klimchuk did this past season.

We'll start with splits.

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Note: 1H stands for first half, 2H stands for second half.

I'll go in order of who was drafted first to last.

With Monahan, a couple of things stand out. First off, since he only played 58 games his season was divided into 29 game segments. The fact he had 42 points in his first 29 games is pretty darn impressive considering he was playing on a terrible team and faced ridiculously tough competition.

One thing that will jump out to many is that he was even in his first 29 games and -18 in his final 29. Before suggesting he's a poor defensive player or can't sustain production all season long, I'd like to note a couple things: a) he was rumored to be playing with injury in the second half of the year; b) The 67's moved out a couple of their best players (Cody Ceci, for example) for young players and picks which means he was playing with even lesser talent; and c) Ottawa's goaltending duo was among the worst in the league.

Moving onto Poirier's splits. As many of you know, many people said Poirier was a big second half riser and that's why he was selected in the 1st round. The thing I find interesting about that is that his first half numbers were better than his second half numbers in terms of goals, points, and +/-.

Now obviously not everything is about points and he did start scoring a lot on the power play in the second half, but I still found that interesting.

In Klimchuk, what you see in the numbers is what you get. A consistent two-way player who will pick up his fair share of goals and points.

When you look at Klimchuk's splits, the thing that stands out the most is consistency. He was a point per game player in the first half and in the second half he averaged slightly over a point per game. His goal total increased as well. Overall his season splits were very similar which is a good sign. Consistency is a good trait to have in a young player.

Now onto some more advanced numbers.

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Note: Numbers courtesy of McKeensHockey. ESP is even strength points, PPP is power play points and so forth. GF on Ice % is the percentage of the teams goals for said player was on the ice for while GA is the opposite.

Again, we'll start with Monahan.

The first thing I noticed when I looked at Monahan's numbers was his even strength point total. 40 doesn't seem like much, but that's a pretty good total when you factor in a) he played on a terrible team; b) he was the only real offensive threat; c) he played some of the toughest competition in the league; and d) his games played total was 58.

Another thing that jumped out at me is his power play point total. 38 is a ton, especially in just 58 games. It's even more impressive when you look at the less than mediocre talent he was playing with on the power play. In my scouting report on Monahan I wrote that he's lethal in power play scenarios. It's nice to see the numbers back me up on that.

The fact he didn't have a short handed point was surprising. Lastly, his goals for / goals against percentage split was impressive.

In Poirier's case, something that stood out to me was his lack of power play points. He didn't even record a power play point every four games on average, which is poor when you're referring to a CHL player, especially one of his caliber. Of his 14 power play points, nine of which were goals. That's impressive and surprising at the same time.

One thing that you love to see is that high short handed point total. That means he's on the ice a lot in short handed situations which also means he's not only good defensively, but has a lot of trust from his coaching staff. Trust is key for young players because it leads to more ice time which is obviously good for development.

Quickly going through the rest of his numbers, Poirier's even strength point total is solid and his goals for / goals against splits are very good as well.

Last but not least, we have Klimchuk. He had more power play points than even strength points, which normally you don't like to see but with it being so close it's fine. The stat that really stood out to me for him is his goals for / against percentage splits. He's over +14% in that regard which is impressive to say the least.

It'll be interesting to follow their production in the CHL next year. Hopefully for Flames fans, the numbers continue to improve.

**

Flames working on extensions for Mikael Backlund and TJ Brodie.

I examine how Jay Feaster and the Flames fared in this year's draft.

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