Calgary Flames

- pic via resolute, wikimedia commons For the first time in a decade, the Flames are entering the off-season without really knowing who their starter will be in October. Miikka Kiprusoff hasn't officially retired yet, but even if the 37 year old puckstopper decides he wants to play out the final season of his deal it would make sense for the club to use their compliance buy-out this summer to make his onerous $5.83M cap hit disappear.Even if Kipper somehow sticks around, the Flames should be looking for its next starter this coming season - Calgary's mission is primarily exploratory next season, so it wouldn't benefit the org to stick to the tried and true even if it is an option.So if not Kipper, then who? Here's how Calgary's crease depth chart looks heading into the draft and free agency:1.) Karri RamoThe former Lightning draft pick can't be signed by the Flames until July 5th, but is a good bet to be inked by Feaster and company as soon as possible. Ramo will be 27 on July 1 and is coming off his 4th straight season as a starter in the KHL for Avangard Omsk. Ramo struggled to find his footing in the NHL as a youngster, but has emerged as a legitimate tender across the pond in his mid-20s. His SV% has been north of .920 in each of his last three seasons, culminating in a career best .929 save in 44 games this year. That was the 8th best SV% in the league this season, or 5th best if you narrow the field to goalies who played more than 20 games.Ramo's save rate over his last three seasons (or 3,423 shots) works out to .926, which is a healthy number in the second best league in the world. Unfortunately we don't have enough information to decipher a good KHL-NHL translation factor for goalies, so it's anyone's guess if Ramo will be able to maintain those sort of rates in North America. That said, Ray Emery and Sergei Bobrovsky are two recent examples of guys who played well in Russia (.926 and .932 in a limited sample) and then went on to post similar save stats in the NHL afterwards.Ramo is the favorite right now to be the Flames starter next year. There's little doubt he'll get a long look, whatever else happens.2.) Joey MacDonaldA career back-up who has bounced around various teams and the AHL over the course of his career, MacDonald gamely held the fort for the Flames down the stretch in Calgary, causing the team to re-up him for one more year. MacDonald is a veteran and...that's really all you can say about him. His career SV% in the NHL is .903. His save percentage for the Flames this season was .902. These are replacement level rates at best.There's no reason to think he'll improve on that all of sudden or grab the reigns as the club's putative starter. MacDonald is established enough that he won't cause mass panic on the ice or in the front office should the starter go down to injury, but he's also not the guy who will provide real redundancy in the depth chart if a guy like Ramo proves to be inadequate.It's a 50/50 bet whether MacDonald ends up as the Flames back-up or in the AHL next season. His one year deal is below the new CBA cut-off for retained cap dollars, meaning if he goes down to the farm his dollars won't count towards the Flames cap number. He will likely be considered the favorite as option B unless another guy can outplay him and take the job.3.) Reto BerraThe biggest wildcard is the 26-year old out of Switzerland. Berra is coming off a very big world championships, managing a .967 SV% in four games. His save rate in thw Swiss elite league for Biel was less impressive at .906, but it's hard to know how that relates to the NHL.Berra has spent his entire career across the pond, so is a totally untested commodity at this level. Sometimes those goalies turn out to be buried treasures who can immediately step in and make a difference (see: Jonas Hiller). And sometimes they fizzle out completely (see: Jonas Gustavsson).As such, Berra could end up anywhere between battling for the starters role with Ramo to f

- pic via Resolute, wikimedia commons Although we focus a lot on corsi/possession analysis here at FN when it comes to assessing players and teams, there are obviously othe metrics to take into account when evaluating talent/impact. One of those things which we don't talk about too much is penalty differential, or the difference between a players penalties taken and drawn.Like all measures of performance, there's some randomness in penalties - sometimes the refs let 'em play and sometimes the zebras call everything. Sometimes a guy flips the puck over the glass by accident and sometimes the officials simply tag the wrong guy on a play. That said, the same folks tend to lead to lead the league every year in penalties drawn (and taken), give or take a name, so there's a talent (as well as a circumstance) component to this measure.Behindthenet.ca tracks penalties taken and drawn per hour of even strength ice time here. Sven Baertschi, Dennis Wideman, Mikael Backlund and Roman Horak lead the way while Mark Giordano, Alex Tanguay and Derek Smith pull up the rear.We can go one step further and investigate what impact penalty differential has on wins for the team. According to some work done by Tom Tango recently, a penalty is worth about +/- 0.027 wins to an NHL team on average*:The average NHL team scores an average of .606 PPG and allows .065 SHG, for a net of +.541 goals. They have 3.32 PP opportunities, therefore, per PP Opp, the net effect is +.163 goals. To convert goals to win is roughly 6 goals per win. So, that +.163 goals translates as .027 wins. That is, when a referee calls a penalty, he’s basically shifting the win expectancy by .027 wins.*(of course, in particular, some penalties can cost or win a game depending on timing of the infraction and if the team on the man advantage scores. Say, a hooking call in overtime, for example.)Meaning, for every extra penalty a player draws, he's adding about 0.163 goals to a club's goal differential. That would be a higher number for clubs with especially potent PP's and lower for teams that shoot blanks, but let's work with the average to keep things simple.Penalty Differential and WinsAnyways, here's how things worked out for Flames players this year. The table features guys who played at least 100 minutes at ES and forecasts their penalty differential rates and win effect over an 82 game season. table.tableizer-table { border: 1px solid #CCC; font-family: ; font-size: 12px; } .tableizer-table td { padding: 4px; margin: 3px; border: 1px solid #ccc; } .tableizer-table th { background-color: #8C1010; color: #FFF; font-weight: bold; } Player GP Ptake Pdraw diff/60 Time on ice Total diff wins diff/82 goals/82 wins/82 Sven Baertschi 20 0.5 1.6 1.1 234:09:00 4 0.12 18 2.87 0.47 Dennis Wideman 46 0.1 0.6 0.5 890:40:00 7 0.20 13 2.16 0.36 Mikael Backlund 32 0.7 1 0.3 426:39:00 2 0.06 5 0.89 0.15 Roman Horak 20 0.2 0.5 0.3 252:21:00 1 0.03 5 0.84 0.14 Brian McGrattan 19 0.4 0.8 0.4 136:23:00 1 0.02 4 0.64 0.11 Lee Stempniak 47 0.4 0.6 0.2 671:55:00 2

Halifax Mooseheads goalie Zachary Fucale is considered the best player available at his position for the 2013 NHL Draft, and for good reason. "When I first saw Zach play, I saw NHL written all over him; there's not a doubt in my mind," NHL Cent...

Portland Winterhawks coach Travis Green must have felt a bit of déjà vu watching his team Monday night at the MasterCard Memorial Cup. For the second straight game he saw a multi-goal lead evaporate, but the first-year coach -- promoted to the ...

The NHL Combine takes place May 27 - June 1 in Toronto, ON with 86 North American players and 15 European prospects invited. The Combine is split into two parts; the interview process runs May 27-30 while the fitness testing portion takes place...

A few random thoughts on the world championships, memorial cup and how the Flames draft picks are settling out.WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND-UPFive Flames-related players headed over to Scandinavia for the World Hockey Championships this month. Two of them are coming home with hardware.Jiri Hudler's Czech Republic team finished in seventh place. Hudler had five points in eight games. T.J. Brodie donned the maple leaf for the first time as part of Canada's World Championship entry, but he had just a single point in the seven games he played. Canada finished fifth.The Finns made the medal round but bowed out in the bronze medal game, finishing fourth. Finnish back-up Joni Ortio had a good tournament, going undefeated in three starts with a 1.98 goals against average and a .897 save percentage.Chris Butler put a slight silver lining on his so-so season with a bronze medal. Wait, shouldn't that have been a bronze lining? Anyhow, Butler had two points in 10 games for Team USA.Finally, prospective Flames back-up Reto “Yogi” Berra showed that he has the chops to be a world-class back-up goaltender with the Swiss. He won a silver medal, going 4-0 in his four starts with a 1.00 goals against and an amazing .967 save percentage. Granted, it's “just” the Worlds, but it was pretty great for him.MEMORIAL CUP-DATEMeanwhile, in Saskatoon, the last meaningful hockey of the junior season is taking place in the form of the Memorial Cup tournament. Two Flames prospects are vying for the CHL's top prize. Saskatoon has split a pair of games, with Michael Ferland posting two assists thus far. He's been physical, too. The Blades finish their round robin play on Wednesday night against Portland.Speaking of Portland, they've played once and Flames prospect Tyler Wotherspoon has zero points in a single game – which the Hawks dropped to the Halifax Mooseheads by a 7-4 score. They play tonight against the London Knights and then again Wednesday against the Blades.If Portland wins tonight, all four teams are 1-1 after two games and things will get interesting. If Portland loses, they drop to 0-2 and basically disappear from contention already. High stakes.FLAMES DRAFT PICKSWell, the Blues are out. And the Penguins have a lead. What does this mean? Presuming, as I will do here, that the Kings, Blackhawks, Bruins and Penguins will be in the conference finals, here's what will happen.- Calgary's own pick remains at 6th overall.-St. Louis' first rounder would be 22nd overall.- Pittsburgh's first rounder would be one of the last four picks, between 27th and 30th overall.If the Penguins lose, though, because Chicago is the only remaining division winning team that finished ahead of them, the best that Flames fans can hope to draft with their pick is 25th or 26th. Best case is probably Chicago and Pittsburgh losing, in terms of draft picks. If that happened, the Flames would pick 6th, 20th and 25th.Govern your cheering accordingly.FGD WRITER RECORDS!And on a lighter note, I (finally) tabulated the season's FGD records sorted by writer. Based on who wrote the game preview, here's how the Flames did.I went 9-8-1, boasting a .500 winning percentage. BookofLoob was tied in winning percentage, at 1-1-0. Justin Azevedo went 3-4-1 (for a .375 winning percentage), while Nations overlord Kent Wilson went 4-8-2 for a woeful .285 winning percentage. Only Vintage Flame (0-3-0) was worse.Collectively, the FN writing crew went 17-24-4. The OilerNation guest writers produced two Flames wins in the three games they previewed for us.IF I WERE DRAFTINGFinally, if I were drafting as Flames GM, with the 6th, 22nd and 30th picks, here's who I would grab.At 6th overall: Sean Monahan, from the Ottawa 67s. He's big, a center and has experience being a good player on a bad team. Much like how I enjoyed Brett Kulak carrying the mail in Vancouver (as I think it helps his development), the same can be said for Monahan in Ottawa.At 22nd overall: Morgan Klimchuk, from the Regina Pats. For one, he

Russian goalie Andrey Makarov made 29 saves to lead the Saskatoon Blades to a 5-2 victory against the heavily favored Halifax Mooseheads on Sunday in round-robin play at the 2013 MasterCard Memorial Cup before 8,934 fans at Credit Union Centre in ...

Nathan MacKinnon showed once again why he's the top offensive player available for the 2013 NHL Draft. The Halifax Mooseheads center, No. 2 on NHL Central Scouting's final ranking of North American skaters for this year's draft, showcased his f...

CALGARY, AB -- Switzerland's run at the 2013 IIHF World Championships came to an end in the gold medal game as they fell to Sweden 5-1. Heading into the game, Switzerland won nine straight games and secured themselves the country's first silver...

CALGARY, AB -- The Saskatoon Blades opened the scoring in the first game of the Memorial Cup tournament but fell 3-2 to the London Knights on Friday. 2013 NHL Draft prospect Nikita Zadorov scored the game-winner in the third period, jumping on ...