Again I don’t know if you read me right, but the relative stats are relative to teamMATES not relative to team. So Gio and Hamilton have way less of an impact here.
You're grasping at straws. Here are the five pairings that logged 100+ minutes together for the Flames:
Giordano-Hamilton - 57.58% - 1258.95 TOI
Brodie-Hamonic - 51.11% - 1063.08 TOI
Kulak-Stone - 50.81% - 661.88 TOI
Brodie-Stone - 48.78% - 165.95 TOI
Bartkowski-Stone - 42.14% 113.38 TOI
First of all it's clear that the top two pairings played together almost exclusively all season. And that top pairing posted outlier results. Second it's clear that the third pairing posted worse results than the second pairing - despite playing against significantly weaker opponents.
Second it's clear, regardless of the stats, that Stone is the worst of the top six, and Bartkowski is the worst defenseman on the roster. When bumped up to a top four spot with Brodie, Stone dragged Brodie down almost two percent relative to Hamonic.
Now let's look at whatever pairings spent 50-100 minutes together
Brodie-Hamilton - 49.86% - 88.47 TOI
So despite Hamilton being the best corsi dman on the team, this pairing posted worse results than Brodie-Hamonic. It's almost as if the Giordano-Hamilton pairing is just the kind of pairing that just works. what about Hamonic?
Giordano-Hamonic - 52.4% - 77.35 TOI
So of the seven pairings examined, this would have been the second best possession pairing on the Flames roster. Lo And Behold Travis Hamonic would make two of the top three! They do slightly edge out Brodie-Hamonic in possession, which is expected as Giordano is a possession beast Dman.
Next:
After TJ Brodie got hurt, Hamonic was paired with an actual possession black hole who was moved to his offwing because veteran logic
Stone-Hamonic - 40.5% - 63.5 TOI
This was a pairing that didn't work. This makes sense, because the Flames don't have a possession-dominant forward group, they are a team who post strong possession numbers because their Top 4 Dmen + Hamonic are strong puck movers. Michael Stone is not a puck moving defenseman and he is not a top four defenseman AND he is not a left defenseman. We observed earlier his effect on TJ Brodie and I never said Hamonic is as strong a puck mover as the excellent TJ Brodie, even though he is a strong puck mover.
Finally,
Kulak-Hamonic - 51.57% - 66.58 TOI
WIth the failure of Stone in a top four role, the rookie Dman Brett Kulak finds himself in a top four role, and lo and behold, even with a rookie partner, Travis Hamonic posts another corsi% that would rank in the top four CF% of the nine I've posted.
So to reiterate the four best defense pairings the Flames could roll by corsi% were:
Giordano-Hamilton (Large sample size)
Giordano-Hamonic (small sample size)
Kulak-Hamonic (small sample size)
Brodie-Hamonic (Large sample size)
But keep telling me Hamonic's underlyings suck. Or maybe just read the definition of skew.