Pretty much everything went wrong for the Calgary Flames this past season. Some are predicting the team to take a further step back (ahem, ESPN), others are predicting huge bounce-back seasons from many key players (ahem, us), and some are splitting the difference and projecting the Flames to perform just about the same as they did last year.
I’m of the opinion that there really isn’t a way the Flames don’t improve, simply because of how many things went sideways. Add in a new coach and positive vibes all around, and things should naturally get better.
Career average Calgary Flames are still good
For the sake of argument, how would the team perform if everyone simply played to their career averages? I think the team would be damn good, and a lock to make the playoffs. Here is how that extremely conservative scenario would go.
Forwards
Breaking down the forwards by line, I’m assuming the 12 regular forwards play all 82 games, for the sake of argument. As well, the 12 forwards who make up the roster are all the regular NHLers, plus Matt Coronato, Adam Ruzicka, Walker Duehr, and Kevin Rooney. Rooney is injured currently, but we’ll use him as the 4C just because we have NHL data from him and it’s likely what we can expect from whoever is in that role. Jakob Pelletier will definitely be on the NHL roster this year and all of Connor Zary, Cole Schwindt, and Ben Jones could realistically play NHL games; for an average though, Rooney is fine.
| Player | Goals | Assists | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jonathan Huberdeau | 23 | 50 | 73 |
| Elias Lindholm | 22 | 34 | 56 |
| Yegor Sharangovich | 21 | 21 | 42 |
| Dillon Dube | 16 | 19 | 35 |
| Nazem Kadri | 24 | 32 | 56 |
| Matt Coronato | 20 | 20 | 40 |
| Andrew Mangiapane | 23 | 19 | 42 |
| Mikael Backlund | 17 | 28 | 45 |
| Blake Coleman | 19 | 16 | 35 |
| Adam Ruzicka | 12 | 22 | 34 |
| Kevin Rooney | 9 | 8 | 17 |
| Walker Duehr | 21 | 12 | 33 |
In total, this forward corps at just career averages scores a total of 227 goals. Immediately, several players stand out as ones who should surpass their totals in this chart: Huberdeau, Lindholm, and Dube are the most clear-cut. However, they are probably balanced out by players who are likely not able to hit their numbers: Coleman and Duehr.
Here, we’re also assuming Coronato has a very productive rookie season with 20 goals and 20 assists. I don’t think that’s bullish at all, but it would be an excellent rookie year for the young forward.
Defence
It looks like the three pairings are set with Jordan Oesterle claiming Oliver Kylington’s role. However, there are players who could push and play NHL games this year including Kylington, Ilya Solovyov, Jeremie Poirier, Nick DeSimone, and Brady Lyle. With Dennis Gilbert back from his brief injury, let’s assume he’s the seventh defenceman.
| Player | Goals | Assists | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| MacKenzie Weegar | 7 | 26 | 33 |
| Rasmus Andersson | 6 | 29 | 35 |
| Noah Hanifin | 7 | 26 | 33 |
| Chris Tanev | 4 | 16 | 20 |
| Nikita Zadorov | 6 | 12 | 18 |
| Jordan Oesterle | 4 | 15 | 19 |
With this defence corps performing at career averages, the Flames can expect a total of 34 goals from the blueline. It’s not a ton and would have ranked 20th in the NHL in each of the last two seasons, but there are some definite increases we can expect.
Here, no defenceman is expected to surpass the seven-goal mark, even though Zadorov and Andersson hit 14 and 11 goals respectively last season. With Hanifin in a career year and Weegar’s strong second half, it would be surprising to not see a significant increase from the defence corps over their career averages. Last season, the Flames’ defence had 49 goals, and it’s unlikely they finish below that total this year.
Goalies
For this argument, we’re assuming Jacob Markstrom plays 55 games as the team’s starter and Dan Vladar plays the remaining 27 as the backup. I played with the numbers to see if adjusting them would change the team win total but it ended up the same.
We know that Dustin Wolf will play NHL games this year, but we don’t really know how he will perform so assuming he’ll be the exact same as either one of these two goalies that he’d take a game from is probably fair.
| Player | Record | Shutouts | Goals Against | GAA | SV% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jacob Markstrom | 25-23-7 | 2 | 149 | 2.72 | 0.909 |
| Dan Vladar | 15-7-5 | 1 | 83 | 2.87 | 0.898 |
With this goalie tandem at career averages, the Flames would be a 40-win, 94-point team. Essentially a bubble playoff team; the points cutoff for playoffs in the last year three full NHL seasons were 92, 97, and 90.
The two goalies would also allow a total of 232 goals, which would rank 12th lowest in the NHL. Of course, we should expect the goaltending to improve as last year was an abysmal year for Markstrom, but even with this conservative scenario, it looks pretty decent.
Calgary’s average is considerably above-average
The team would score a total of 261 goals, allow 232 goals, and finish with a goal differential of +29. This would have ranked 11th in the NHL last season, a significant increase from a 17th-place finish last year.
With just career average performances across the board, this Flames team is likely one that will qualify for the playoffs. If we expect even a marginal improvement on the defence and from the top forwards, playoffs should be a lock.
