Daily Faceoff Live: Why the Calgary Flames are struggling at 5-on-5
On Thursday’s edition of Daily Faceoff Live, Cam Charron joined Frank Seravalli and Mike McKenna to discuss the Calgary Flames’ five-on-five shooting percentage.
Mike McKenna: The Flames are in St. Louis on back-to-backs. You’ve noted that the Flames have gone from 14th in 5v5 shooting percentage to now regressed and sitting 24th in the league as one of the lowest teams at 5v5. What have you noticed about the Flames?
Cam Charron: So, the thing I notice is that they are pretty good off the rush and entering the zone. The problem is when the play breaks downs and they start to work off the cycle they really settle for a lot of low-quality perimeter shots and that’s become a big problem for them. The Flames just haven’t turned enough shots into scoring chances and they sit at about half the league average. Only 15 percent of their cycle shots turn into scoring chances, whereas the rest of the league sits at above 30 percent. It’s a lot of outside effort, and it’s a lot of Nikita Zadorov shots from the point, Michael Stone has a big shot but it’s not very effective; it finds shin pads or the goalie’s glove a lot of the time. They aren’t doing a lot to create enough space in the zone. It’s interesting because this is a team that has good prospects in the Calgary Wranglers system; they’ve called up Jakob Pelletier, and they’ve had Matthew Phillips. But they haven’t given these guys enough chances in the top six to try and create a bit of an extra element, more speed, more space and deceptiveness in the offensive zone. Toronto is really good at being able to turn those long sequences into scoring chances just by creating little pick plays. They’re able to find ways to find space in the offensive zone. In other situations, though the Flames have been fine off the rush, forechecking and their transition game is a little off. I think the Flames are still hanging around, they’ve got these correctable problems and they’re probably a team who should be in the playoff race.
You can watch the full episode here…