GDT: Predators at Calgary- Flaming Kittens - 7 PM SN360, FS-TN

[SKRusty]

Toews in his prime, like Bennett is a better individual puck retriever than our top line combined. He also played with Hossa who would be the best puck retriever on our entire team by a country mile, when he wasn't using his 210+lb frame to skate the puck through traffic with agility.

Likewise Ovechkin and Crosby. They make the safe play because they afe individual freak monsters.

Gaudreau is not. He doesn't have the size (obviously) or elite speed (a la Byron) to be. That is why Ferland worked so well with him. He would toss the puck into the corner, Ferland retrieves it against multiple bodies, and twenty seconds Monahan has a goal.

Monahan is not. He is not remotely a player who threaten to play chip and chase. That is also why our power play sucks at zone entries. He's not particularly goreat at carrying the puck either but he's far better at that alongside a primary puck handler Gaudreau than he is at creating havoc on the forecheck. That's why he was a huge beneficiary of Ferland and why he hasn't really clicked with (the otherwise excellent) Lindholm.

You are confusing the choice to make the safe play with the choice to make the successful play.

Top lines have to make the successful play and for that to work they will need a Toews/Crosby like dominant forechecking center or a Hossa/Ferland like speedy massive winger. Gaudreau is not that, even if he is undoubtably a top line player. The Sedins needed Burrows. Draisaitl needed Hall or McDavid. Gaudreau needs either Ferland or an actual number one center if you want him to make the safe play because otherwise it is not the successful play.

For a person all about the statistics at time you are disregarding a big one. When you turn over a puck the chances you get scored on increase exponentially with where you are in the ice surface. Turnovers are killing Calgary. 21 of them last night. When Calgary's turnovers are equal to or better than the opposition we win 90% of the time. When Calgary turns over the puck more than the opposition by more than 33% Calgary loses about 80% of the time.

Johnny is actually at his best when he is pressuring the passing lanes and d-men in the opposing zone. He pick's pockets, intercepts passes and in general makes breaking out difficult. Monahan and Lindholm are the same to a lesser degree. So by the percentages what I have said is the safer play and 8-9 times a game rather than giving away the puck the line would be taking away the puck thus making the chip in the more successful option.

All I am saying is Johnny needs to start chipping in the very low percentage scenarios.... NOT EVERY TIME. The smart play. If you watch a game and put down the rose tinted glasses for a game you will see that those situations are easy to identify. Johnny Surrounded by 3 guys with little to no support is the time to spin and chip rather than trying to make a move around 3 guys.

PS. This would also reduce the hits Johnny is taking a little.

 

[OvermanKingGainer]

For a person all about the statistics at time you are disregarding a big one. When you turn over a puck the chances you get scored on increase exponentially with where you are in the ice surface. Turnovers are killing Calgary. 21 of them last night. When Calgary's turnovers are equal to or better than the opposition we win 90% of the time. When Calgary turns over the puck more than the opposition by more than 33% Calgary loses about 80% of the time.

Johnny is actually at his best when he is pressuring the passing lanes and d-men in the opposing zone. He pick's pockets, intercepts passes and in general makes breaking out difficult. Monahan and Lindholm are the same to a lesser degree. So by the percentages what I have said is the safer play and 8-9 times a game rather than giving away the puck the line would be taking away the puck thus making the chip in the more successful option.

All I am saying is Johnny needs to start chipping in the very low percentage scenarios.... NOT EVERY TIME. The smart play. If you watch a game and put down the rose tinted glasses for a game you will see that those situations are easy to identify. Johnny Surrounded by 3 guys with little to no support is the time to spin and chip rather than trying to make a move around 3 guys.

PS. This would also reduce the hits Johnny is taking a little.

Top line players will turn the puck over. Ironically one of the biggest issues with Bennett is he has an astoundingly low low giveaway rate which suggest he isn't playing with a top line mentality.

We don't need Gaudreau to stop being Gaudreau, we need Gaudreau to be 2017-18 Gaudreau and for that he needs a Ferland. Plus a Lindholm on the PP to really hit his potential.

He makes more questionable decisions his year because he knows Monahan and Lindholm won't retrieve the puck like Ferland did.

Either way the Flames played well enough to win last night. Preds got all the calls and had the superior goaltending, that's all it came down to.

 

[Bounces R Way]

The Predators played an excellent defensive game. I found it encouraging the Flames were able to get some quality chances and score 3 goals(and really should of had 3 more) despite all the defensive pressure Nashville was putting on them in their zone. That team didn't win the President's Trophy last year by accident, they're a very solid lineup.

Defensively not so great, some pretty glaring unforced mistakes cost the Flames. The structure was for the most part still fairly sound. You really can't expect top tier goaltending from Mike Smith, he's 36 and we're paying him 4.25, some nights he's going to make that extra save and some nights he's not. Just is what it is.

 

[Dack]

It depends which Hartley team you mean. The mail-it-in final year where the players tuned him out, yes, and those symptoms continued under Gulutzan. But the Hartley team that played Hartley's style was entirely the opposite. They didn't allow high-danger chances (and I mean real ones, where you expect the player to scored due to the situation while you're watching, not the "according to my spreadsheet, shots from that area of the ice have a 5% higher chance of going in") because they never committed guys forward unless they had an odd-man situation to attack. Teams would get tons of zone time against us but not force our goalies to make difficult saves. Right now, we aren't giving our goalie a ton of work, but the work we are giving him is as difficult as it gets.

And what Bingo is saying there is a little bit contradictory. Yes, the first line spends some shifts getting hemmed, but they also produced (by my count) the most high-quality chances of anyone on our team. As he says, the problem is high-danger chances against, not zone time against. It's not about whether the first line spends a shift in the offensive zone, it's about the big errors leading to easy goals, and those errors are happening in every single phase of the game. The first goal came off a mistake defending a dump-in. The second goal came off of zone time with the first line out. The third goal came off a failed clearance on the PK. The fourth goal came off of a bad pinch in the offensive zone.

The advanced stats say they had 16 high-danger chances, but that's probably not going to match up perfectly with the eye test due to the way that those algorithms are designed to assess the nature of chances. More realistically, I'd say that Smith made probably one "wow" save for every goal he allowed last night. Some may have been from zone time, some may have been during the end-game when we were pushing to tie, but overall they seem to be popping up everywhere throughout our game.

I agree to an extent. I think we did allow a lot of dangerous chances last night and the number is not misleading. Also I think that while the 2015-2016 Hartley team was the worst that 2014-2015 wasn't good defensively either. They did their best to close off the middle but when you spend so much time in your own zone the other team is bound to get some good chances. I think that our D men always jumping into the rush also resulted in some rushes our way, Hiller was actually very good that season IMO.

 

[Tkachuk Norris]

Yeah the predators have been murdering teams and we played them pretty equal over two games. No shame losing against good teams. This team does too much well. But playing aggressive will result in some ugly games

I’d rather the odd ugly game trying to win then dont lose philosophy under Gully

 

[Anglesmith]

I agree to an extent. I think we did allow a lot of dangerous chances last night and the number is not misleading. Also I think that while the 2015-2016 Hartley team was the worst that 2014-2015 wasn't good defensively either. They did their best to close off the middle but when you spend so much time in your own zone the other team is bound to get some good chances. I think that our D men always jumping into the rush also resulted in some rushes our way, Hiller was actually very good that season IMO.

It was actually very rare that we allowed rush chances that season, partly because when we did send guys forward on the rush, we were clinical in taking advantage and at least turning it into a situation where the other team had to work hard to prevent a goal. It seemed like we would go entire games at a time without giving up an odd-man rush. The next season was so drastically different in that regard.