One of the biggest issues with the Calgary Flames this season is their power play. The topic has been belaboured to death, but it remains the most obvious problem holding this team back. In a perfect world, the addition of Marc Savard to the coaching staff would have improved the power play to be at least league average, but the Flames are far away from that utopia.
Currently, the Flames own the 28th-ranked power play in the league, converting at an 11.9% clip. The New Jersey Devils own the best power play in the league which converts at 32.6%. The league average power play this season is exactly 20%. A total of 561 power play goals have been scored by all teams this year on 2820 total opportunities.
What if the Flames had that average power play and operated at 20%? Let’s break it down.
Flames goals on the power play
So far, the Flames have scored 10 total power play goals on 84 attempts. These 10 power play goals ranks them 28th most in the league.
If they operated at 20% on the power play, they would have scored 16.7 goals, but we’ll round down for good measure—call it 16. That’s an increase of six goals, and would push the Flames’ total goals scored on the year to 89.
This would bring the Flames in line with teams like the Florida Panthers and Minnesota Wild, but their 16 goals would only rank 21st in the NHL, not a huge improvement from where they are now. Many teams are stuck in the mushy middle of power play conversion percentages; few teams are at the top and few teams are at the bottom of the league for this statistic.
Still, with this improvement the Flames’ goal differential would climb from -15 to -9, and they’d boast a total special teams percentage of 104.3 (20% PP and 84.3% PK) which would rank 11th in the NHL. This would be a marked improvement from their current 96.2, which ranks 22nd.
Impact on the standings
Of the 16 losses the Flames have incurred this season, seven have been one-goal losses either in regulation or overtime, or two-goal losses with the second goal coming on the empty net.
- October 20: Columbus Blue Jackets, 3-1 (ENG against)
- October 16: Washington Capitals, 3-2 (SOL)
- November 1: Dallas Stars, 4-3
- November 10: Toronto Maple Leafs, 5-4 (SOL)
- November 18: New York Islanders, 5-4 (SOL)
- December 2: Vancouver Canucks, 4-3 (ENG against)
- December 9: New Jersey Devils, 4-2 (ENG against)
If the Flames had scored an extra power play goal in any of these games, they would have conceivably picked up at least one more point in a handful of them. For a team just three points out of a playoff spot, this could be huge, not to mention the fact that one of these games came against the division rival Canucks (though the Flames did go two-for-five on the power play in this game, ironically).
Room for improvement
The silver lining is that the Flames’ power play really can’t get any worse. Apparently, Savard does watch other teams’ power plays to try and improve the Flames’ power play, but ultimately it’s up to the players on the ice to implement the systems that Savard coaches.
If the Flames can improve even by a few more percentage points, they’ll be in much better shape as the season wears on.
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