The Calgary Flames begin the unofficial second half of the season Tuesday night against the St. Louis Blues.
Let’s take a look at four of the bigger questions surrounding the team as we head towards the trade deadline and the stretch run of the season.
1. How aggressive will the Flames be? The Flames will be buyers. I think most realize that and accept it as a reasonable course of action. What’s up in the air of just how far GM Brad Treliving should, and will, go.
There are two different ways to look at the Flames, and both shape entirely different outlooks of how Treliving should proceed:
There are 17 different teams with as many or more points as Calgary (57). While the Flames are holding down a playoff spot, they’re the only team doing so with a negative goal differential. They’re a fringe playoff team.
The Flames have won 15 times in 23 tries under Geoff Ward. Only six teams have more wins since he took over, and just four sides have a higher points percentage. Despite the slow start, and inconsistent offense, they’re now just one point out of top spot in the Pacific as a result. The door is wide open for them to make noise and they should buy accordingly.
I think the happy medium is somewhere in between. The Flames, as currently constructed, are probably a little better than their current standing suggests, while they’re not quite as good as the results they’ve garnered under Ward.
I continue to believe targeting an upper-mid tier rental who could be re-signed at a somewhat reasonable price (Tyler Toffoli) or another top-6 winger with some control (Kyle Palmieri, Ondrej Kase, etc.) would be the best course of action.
The Flames absolutely should not be trading top assets – 1st round picks, Juuso Valimaki, Dillon Dube, etc. – for any rental, especially the Chris Kreiders and J.G. Pageaus who’d cost an arm and a leg to extend.
2. Will Cam Talbot hold up? I liked the Talbot signing and thought he was a good bet to have a bounce-back season. But not like this.
Talbot owns a .922 save percentage through 16 games played. That slots him ahead of Andrei Vasilevskiy, Connor Hellebuyck, Jacob Markstrom, Jordan Binnington, Frederik Andersen, and many of the league’s top netminders.
Generally you’re only hoping for ~average goaltending from your backup and Talbot has provided a whole lot more than that (.922 vs .904).
The question now: can Talbot maintain this high level of play?
David Rittich has handled a very large workload. He ranks 5th in minutes played, 5th in shots against, and his numbers are strong across the board.
That the Flames haven’t been able to score, and provide him with little margin for error on a nightly basis, hasn’t seemed to impact his performance.
With that said, it’s necessary to ease his burden down the stretch. He is on pace for nearly 60 games, which is too much in today’s NHL.
Good teams realize as much. Andersen is the only goaltender on a playoff team who has played more minutes than Rittich, and that’s because the Leafs’ backup situation is probably worse than anyone’s.
Talbot is almost certainly going to play more in the coming months (he has to or Rittich will burnout). Can he handle it?
3. Can Mark Giordano get going offensively? Giordano is having a good year – he was an All-Star for a reason. He’s not having a great year. His on-ice numbers aren’t as eye-popping as we’ve grown accustomed to and his offensive game has really dried up. I expected regression this season – it was inevitable – but not to this extent. Giordano is on pace for just 36 points, which would be his lowest output over a full year since 2009-10.
The team’s lack of scoring ability as a whole plays a part, of course, but we can’t attribute all the blame to everyone else. I mean, Giordano has fewer 5v5 points than Joel Edmundson, Mackenzie Weegar, and Vladislav Gavrikov. That simply cannot be.
The Flames need to jumpstart their offense and the Captain has to be at the forefront of it.
4. Will Noah Hanifin step up? Hanifin is a guy whose outputs oftentimes don’t match the toolkit. That’s certainly been the case this season as he’s not having a particularly good campaign at either end of the rink.
He is on pace for just 22 points, which would match a career low. More importantly, he is bleeding goals defensively.
Of the 106 defenders with 700+ minutes of 5v5 ice to their name, Hanifin ranks 99th in Goals For%. He has been on for 41 goals against, most on the Flames, and nobody on the roster has a *worse* goal differential.
His underlyings suggest he’s probably a little unlucky to get such poor results, however, it’s worth pointing out his relative numbers are not good. The Flames fare better in almost every key metric when he’s not on the ice.
If the Flames can’t even bank on close to even hockey with a 2nd pairing defender, who is locked up long-term, on the ice, they’re probably not going very far. He has to be better.
numbers via NaturalStatTrick.com Recent posts: