ABC's Unorthodox Flames Awards

[ABC923]

With the season finally over, I decided to do a light hearted reflection on the season by handing out some awards.  Now, these aren’t your ordinary ‘who scored the most’ type awards, but are based on raw statistics with a twist.  To qualify, players must have played at least 30 games with the flames this year, so this eliminates players like Stewart, Shore, Jagr, and Versteeg.  Without further ado, here are ABC’s alternative flames awards.

 

Santa Clause Award: Awarded to the player who can’t stop giving away the puck.

This Year’s Winner: Johnny Gaudreau, with 100 giveaways on the nose!  Triple digits, not an easy feat!

Runners Up: Brodie (68), Hamilton (72)

No one was touching Gaudreau on this one.  Brodie and Hamilton made valiant attempts, and were neck and neck right up to the buzzer, but with almost 30 more give-aways than either runner up, Johnny Hockey walks away without breaking a sweat. 

 

Burglar Award: Awarded to the player who can’t stop picking other team’s pockets.

Winner: Mikael Backlund, with a whopping 81 takeaways!

Runner Up: Sam Bennett (54), Monahan (51)

Backlund had a stellar year by this measure, with 50% more takeaways than his nearest competition.  The opposition best hang on to their watches out there, lest Backlund looks to diversify his business beyond stealing pucks.  Kudos to Bennett though for coming in second here, although he may have been 3^rd if Monahan had not been injured.

 

Eagle Eye Award: For the player who can thread the needle and hit the net the most.

Winner: Matt Stajan, who hit the net on 65.7% of his shot attempts!

Runner Up: Matthew Tkachuk (60.8%), Michael Frolik (59.4%)

While he doesn’t shoot as much as the runners up, Stajan rarely has his shots blocked and almost always gets it on net.  Who would have thought? Oh, and Tkachuk is a beast.  Just thought I’d mention that.

 

The Barn Award: For the player who can’t hit the broadside of…

Winner: Michael Stone, who only hit the net 39.4% of the time!

Runner Up: Travis Hamonic (41%)

This was a close one, but Stone was just a bit more committed to rifling slap-shots off opposition shinpads and out.  In case anyone is wondering, the four worst players at getting the puck on net this year (and 5 of the bottom 6) play defense, with only Brouwer cracking the bottom 5 from the forward ranks.  While you expect defense to have a harder time getting shots through than forwards, only Dougie Hamilton manages to do so more than 50% of the time, which could be part of our problem offensively.

Russel Award:  For the player most willing to sacrifice his body.

Winner: Mark Giordano, with 161 shot blocks on the season!

Runner Up: Michael Stone (158)

These two guys were neck and neck right up to the end of the season, laying their bodies out to take the punishment whenever possible.  Kudos.  Special mention to Hamonic, who was a distant 3^rd.

 

 

[ABC923]

Round 2.

 

Russel Award:  For the player most willing to sacrifice his body.

Winner: Mark Giordano, with 161 shot blocks on the season!

Runner Up: Michael Stone (158)

These two guys were neck and neck right up to the end of the season, laying their bodies out to take the punishment whenever possible.  Kudos.  Special mention to Hamonic, who was a distant 3^rd.

 

Hulk Award: Hulk Smash!

Winners: Michael Ferland (171 hits) and Garnet Hathaway (154 hits)!

Runner Up: Sam Bennett (140), Curtis Lazar (130)

Ferland wins hands down on pure number of hits, but Hathaway was a close second, and when we see how many hits each player delivers per minute of ice time, Hathaway crushes most of the competition (only Lazar comes close).  Special mention to Bennett and Lazar, who have mini-hulks inside of them as well.  Also, Stone is the most physical player on the blue-line, coming in 6^th on the team with 106 hits.  Something to think about.

 

Pillow Award: For the player who’s softest on the opposition’s bodies.

Winner: Johnny Gaudreau, with only 16 hits!

Runner Up: TJ Brodie (24)

Nothing too surprising here.  Neither of these players are known for their physical play.  Special mention to Mike Smith, who is credited with 1 body check this year.  If I were to include more runners up, Janko and Monahan tied with 35 hits.

[ABC923]

Now for special teams awards.  

Special Eligibility Requirements: Must take a regular shift on the PK/PP.  I have taken this to mean averaging at least 1 minute per game on the PK/PP.

 

Killer Award: For the player who powerplays fear to cross.

Winner: Garnet Hathaway, with only 3.7 Goals against per 60 minutes of PK ice time!

Runner Up: Mark Jankowski (3.9 GA/60)

Sure, the sample size for these two players isn’t huge, but the fact is when they are on the ice opponents rarely get the better of them.  Great work from the two youngsters.

 

Swiss Cheese Award:  For the player who can’t seem to stop anything the opposition PP throws at them.

Winner: Troy Brouwer and Matt Stajan, who tied with 10.4 GA per 60 minutes of PK time!

Runner Up: Travis Hamonic (7.8 GA/60)

These poor guys.  Despite being totally ineffective of the PK, the coach just keeps throwing them out there.  No other player comes anywhere close to these two in this category aside from a handful of players with very small sample sizes like Rasmus Andersson.  If they ever set foot on a PK again, it will be too soon.

 

Energizer Award: For the player who powers up the PP.

Winner: Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan, who were on the ice for 7.2 goals for per 60 minutes of PP time!

Runner Up: Matthew Tkachuk (6.5 GF/60), Brodie (6.2 GF/60)

No surprise that the team’s 2 best offensive threats drive the PP.  Special mention to Versteeg, who actually owns this category but was sidelined for too many games to be considered for this award.

 

Short Circuit Award: For the players who drains the power from the play.

Winner: Sam Bennett?! 3.6 GF/60

Runner Up: Troy Brouwer, Dougie Hamilton (4.3 GF/60)

The infamous Brouwer play doesn’t just look bad with the eye test, it is bad from a statistical perspective as well.  Despite this, it still sees a regular shift out there, for some reason.  This award was owned by Brouwer right up to the very end, but in the last few games Bennett was getting more ice with no success and Brouwer found himself on the ice for the last PP goal of the year, allowing them to switch places.  So congrats to Bennett for pulling this one out of the fire and proving to be the least effective player on an already ineffective PP.  Also, aside from that stretch in the new year where the powerplay actually seemed okay, Hamilton is not very effective on the PP.

[ABC923]

Final Round.

 

Lucky Charms Award: For the player with the best puck-luck.

Winner: Ferland, with a PDO of 101.4.

Runner Up: Stajan (100.7), Monahan (100.2), Gaudreau (100)

PDO is often called the luck stat.  It takes the team shooting percentage and adds it to the team save percentage (all 5v5).  In general, PDO should regress to around 100.  If PDO is greater than 100, you either shoot the lights out or the goalie stands on his head (or both) while you are on the ice.

So congrats Ferland, you are the luckiest guy on the team this year.  Btw, how sad is it that our 4^th luckiest player by this measure has a PDO of 100, or simply league average?

 

Monkey Paw Award: For the player with the worst puck-luck.

Winner: Backlund and Frolik (PDO 94.6)!

Runners Up: Bennett (96.7), Lazar (97)

These are some truly awful numbers.  The most common thread between these players is their low shooting percentages.  Backlund (6.5%), Frolik (6.0%), Bennett (7.0%), Lazar (3.1%) all shot well below their career averages (8.9, 7.8, 10.1, 5.7 respectively).  If they all shot their career averages, they would have scored 5,3,5,2 more goals respectively (maybe more, since Bennett and Lazar have had their career averages significantly lowered by this season alone).  That’s a total of 15 more goals for the team between these 4 players, which would have raised the team from the 27^th best offense to a tie for 19^th with the Ducks.  These guys are all candidates to have improved offensive numbers next year, so here’s hoping a bit more puck luck comes their way.  But anyway, congratulations to Backlund and Frolik, may your win help sooth your wounded pride.

[MAC331]

5 minutes ago, ABC923 said:

Final Round.

 

Lucky Charms Award: For the player with the best puck-luck.

Winner: Ferland, with a PDO of 101.4.

Runner Up: Stajan (100.7), Monahan (100.2), Gaudreau (100)

PDO is often called the luck stat.  It takes the team shooting percentage and adds it to the team save percentage (all 5v5).  In general, PDO should regress to around 100.  If PDO is greater than 100, you either shoot the lights out or the goalie stands on his head (or both) while you are on the ice.

So congrats Ferland, you are the luckiest guy on the team this year.  Btw, how sad is it that our 4^th luckiest player by this measure has a PDO of 100, or simply league average?

 

Monkey Paw Award: For the player with the worst puck-luck.

Winner: Backlund and Frolik (PDO 94.6)!

Runners Up: Bennett (96.7), Lazar (97)

These are some truly awful numbers.  The most common thread between these players is their low shooting percentages.  Backlund (6.5%), Frolik (6.0%), Bennett (7.0%), Lazar (3.1%) all shot well below their career averages (8.9, 7.8, 10.1, 5.7 respectively).  If they all shot their career averages, they would have scored 5,3,5,2 more goals respectively (maybe more, since Bennett and Lazar have had their career averages significantly lowered by this season alone).  That’s a total of 15 more goals for the team between these 4 players, which would have raised the team from the 27^th best offense to a tie for 19^th with the Ducks.  These guys are all candidates to have improved offensive numbers next year, so here’s hoping a bit more puck luck comes their way.  But anyway, congratulations to Backlund and Frolik, may your win help sooth your wounded pride.

LOL A+ for the effort with this post. BRAVO

[travel_dude]

I can;t even imagine how Lazar managed 1 shot average per game.

Even "Never Shoot" Brodie still managed 1.6 per game. 

[ABC923]

21 hours ago, MAC331 said:

LOL A+ for the effort with this post. BRAVO

Thanks, I was going for a little bit of fun.  That said, I did find out a few things that surprised me along the way.  The biggest observations I would say include the low shooting percentages.  The four players I highlighted in the Monkey Paw award are not the only ones with diminished shooting numbers, which gives me some hope for next year.

 

The next big surprise was finding out how soft our defense play.  We all know that Brodie is a softy physically, but when a third pairing defense man is your most physical defender, there's a problem.  I expected Hamonic to lead the team, let alone the blue line in this category based on his personal history, yet he tied Hamilton (!) in total hits this season (tied for 8th).  The only seasons where he recorded fewer hits were last year (only played 49 games due to injury) and the lockout year.  In his best season, he racked up over 200 hits, nearly 2.5 times this season.  I get that he will never be the same due to injury, but this still seems like too large a drop.  All this tells me the blue line is actively coached to be less physical.  Maybe it's to improve their longevity and minimize injury, or maybe some fancy stat suggests playing the puck has greater success than playing the body.  I don't think we need to double the number of hits or anything crazy, but other teams need to fear going into the corners with you; they'll make more mistakes that way.  Ever wonder why the flames seem to lose most of the puck battles?  Here you go.