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On Engelland to Vegas and how Flames fared in award voting

June 22, 2017, 10:12 AM ET [142 Comments]
Todd Cordell
Calgary Flames Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
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A few Calgary Flames thoughts following the expansion draft and awards show:

1) I know the Deryk Engelland pick was about planting local roots but it was surprising to me nonetheless.

I'm sure the local angle matters to some but most fans are probably more concerned with winning. Engelland doesn't help in that regard.

Over Engelland's three-year tenure in Calgary, the Flames controlled just 44.2% of the shot attempts and 44% of the goals with him on the ice at 5v5.

For perspective, the Arizona Coyotes controlled 45.1% of the shot attempts and 45% of the goals at 5v5 this past year. Essentially, the Flames were as bad as the tanking Coyotes with Engelland on the ice.

Even if the Golden Knights are willing to sacrifice the product a little bit to help plant roots, the Engelland pick still doesn't make sense.

I don't think the Flames were going to bring him back so Vegas could have drafted someone who could be useful -- 23-year-old Brett Kulak has posted a 52CF% through 30 NHL games -- and signed Engelland a week from now.

2) One thing I always enjoy looking at is vote tallies and seeing which non-finalists also received serious consideration for awards.

Mikael Backlund was among the group as he finished 4th in Selke voting.



I think a good case could be made he should have been in the top-3 -- I'd have him ahead of Mikko Koivu, for example -- but Patrice Bergeron won by a good chunk of votes, as he should have, so it wasn't a huge deal.

Still, it would have been nice for Backlund to get the recognition from casual fans that comes with being a finalist for a major award. At least those in the media gave him some credit.

3) On one hand, it was nice to see Mark Giordano and Dougie Hamilton finish top-9 in Norris voting. On the other hand, why in the heck did Duncan Keith get that many votes? His underlying numbers, be it possession or rate stats, don't hold a candle to Hamilton's, for example, and he finished with 361 more points. Perception matters, I guess.



4) Matthew Tkachuk would rank higher than 7th on my Calder ballot but, at the same time, this rookie class was ridiculous. Nobody can be too upset about this, right?



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