According to Moneypuck, the Calgary Flames are a favorite to win the Stanley Cup

[CantHaveTkachev]

They’re nowhere close to being bad enough to draft elite talent.

I know, the Flames are in that awful "middle area"
not bad enough to draft elite talent
not good enough for a deep run in the playoffs

 

[MikeyMike01]

What's a better source for a playoff prediction?

Literally anything else

 

[BrettHullsToe]

What's a better source for a playoff prediction?

Hockey Reference's predictions seem far more believable to me.

 

[AvroArrow]

Not hating on Flames fans, haven't seen any of them suggest this. But this website is complete trash.

How dare you have a level-headed take that isn't "advanced stats are completely useless."

What's a better source for a playoff prediction? The pundits? Your drunk uncle? God forbid the standings which are a glorified save percentage ranking?

Honestly? I could see it. I don't know what's wrong with the Flames that they're struggling to make it, but if they get in, the West is as tough as a McDonald's ball pit and they're one of the few teams I actually find impressive on paper.

Also, I think the West is the biggest reason some of those teams have an elevated "win Cup" chance. There's fewer threats to the top teams in the West whereas any of the teams in the East can beat any of the other teams.

Just chucking shots from everywhere can actually work in the playoffs. The Kings rode it to two Cups and the Lightning have done it from time to time depending on the series.

Their love for the Panthers, I find a lot more questionable. They're a not-worth-writing-home-about 8th in xGF% and in the crazy ass East.

Watching the actual games is a pretty good predictor.

 

[Filthy Dangles]

This thread was created yesterday...when i click that link I see the Flames with the 6th best chance and they are closer to Penguins and Sabres (~1%) then they are the Hurricanes.

Did the % change that much in a day or Op misrepresented.

If former, that just proves how garbage the stats are. If latter, still proves how garbage the stats are

 

[Garbageyuk]

This thread was created yesterday...when i click that link I see the Flames with the 6th best chance and they are closer to Penguins and Sabres (~1%) then they are the Hurricanes.

Did the % change that much in a day or Op misrepresented.

If former, that just proves how garbage the stats are. If latter, still proves how garbage the stats are

Pretty long winded way of saying you agree with op.

 

[GirardSpinorama]

This site has always been garbage.

 

[Machinehead]

Watching the actual games is a pretty good predictor.

In my viewings of the Flames, they look like a dangerous team if they get goaltending. That's basically what's being argued.

 

[Machinehead]

Hockey Reference's predictions seem far more believable to me.

This is based entirely on the standings. We've seen the standings fail to be predictive.

The President's Trophy winner rarely wins the Cup.

The Canadiens went 46-70-22 in 2021 and 2022 and went to a SCF in between.

 

[BrettHullsToe]

The President's Trophy winner rarely wins the Cup.

So? The President's Trophy winner still has the highest chance of winning the Cup vs a team finishing in any other position of the end-of-season standings. Unless you're seriously trying to compare the cumulative odds of teams 2-16 winning the Cup vs the odds of team 1 winning it, which is just nonsense.

 

[HansonBro]

Betting on Markstrom getting off his ass? Nahhh

 

[Machinehead]

So? The President's Trophy winner still has the highest chance of winning the Cup vs a team finishing in any other position of the end-of-season standings. Unless you're seriously trying to compare the cumulative odds of teams 2-16 winning the Cup vs the odds of team 1 winning it, which is just nonsense.

So the standings aren't predictive of playoff performance.

You just ignored the even better example where a terrible team was in the Finals.

 

[ThrowDemTongs]

ok

 

[BrettHullsToe]

So the standings aren't predictive of playoff performance.

You just ignored the even better example where a terrible team was in the Finals.

Did any of the advanced stats model predictions put Montreal in the Finals? Can any of them consistently outperform just picking the higher seed?

 

[Machinehead]

Did any of the advanced stats model predictions put Montreal in the Finals? Can any of them consistently outperform just picking the higher seed?

It's probably pretty similar.

And yet people treat the standings as gospel and advanced stats like somebody pulled them out of their toilet.

 

[madmike77]

In my viewings of the Flames, they look like a dangerous team if they get goaltending. That's basically what's being argued.

Also according to Moneypuck, the Flames have the 63rd and 75th ranked goalies in the league in terms of saves above expected. There are only 93 goalies ranked, so yes their goaltending has been awful.

 

[ijuka]

This is based entirely on the standings. We've seen the standings fail to be predictive.

The President's Trophy winner rarely wins the Cup.

The Canadiens went 46-70-22 in 2021 and 2022 and went to a SCF in between.

Uh? President's Trophy winner has won most cups out of any position. In contrast, second place finisher hadn't won a cup in like 15 years until the Avalanche did, and proportionally has a very low win rate, unlike President's Trophy winner(which has the highest winrate of them all).

 

[Mido]

They should hire Bruce Boudreau.

 

[abo9]

I was going to go into a spiel about "paths to the Cup" not being equal, but something really does seem off with their metrics.

Calgary is in a race with a handful of teams for the final wildcard spot.

Place	Team	Points Pct	Make Playoffs %	Win Cup %
WC1	Edmonton	.596	92.1	9.4
WC2	Minnesota	.580	70.5	4.6
out	Calgary	.563	83.2	10.7
out	Nashville	.537	9.6	0.2
out	St. Louis	.491	1.0	0

So, I get that the model could be saying that Calgary is due for a big breakout and is actually the best of these 5 teams. But how is it that they have so much better of a Cup chance than Edmonton, who has a much better chance of making the playoffs in the first place?

Then looking at who they would be playing in the first round:

Place	Team	Points Pct	Make Playoffs %	Win Cup %
1st	Vegas	.643	93.7	4.3
2nd	Dallas	.632	94	2.8

Moneypuck has Calgary as a substantial favorite to advance past those teams, despite being the road team, finishing lower in the standings, and having a much lower chance of even being in the first round to begin with.

It seems like they're basically saying Calgary is due to run the table in March and April, and that all the teams ahead of them are due to implode. It's hard to square the numbers here with the reality of how these teams are actually playing, so I can only guess it's based on the idea that 2021-22 was the "real Flames" and that they are all going to break out and start replicating those stats any day now.

That, without Tkachuk and Gaudreau

I guess it implies that Huberdeau and Weegar of 2021-22 are also their "true" forms

 

[thaman8765678]

It's always easy to blame the goaltending.

The team has a tough time scoring and allows a ton of breakaways.

 

[Love]

The Flames have officially been eliminated from playoff contention

 

[Despote]

lmao!

 

[Dirty Dan]

AI misses the human element, the flames can't close loser points at all, they would be comfy if they could finish their chances at an NHL level. Huberdeau has 15 goals thats your guy

 

[SeanMoneyHands]

I could be wrong but I’m almost certain 3 hockey analysts last summer chose the Flames to be in the cup final this year.

 

[General Disarray]

This aged poorly