Calgary Flames Finish Disappointing Season

The Calgary Flames have ended a disappointing 2015-2016 season, so what went wrong?

With a 35-40-7 record its safe to say the Flames have taken a step back from last years magical playoff run.

Whether you believe the Flames were destined to regress thanks to bad possession numbers, or simply believe it was an off-year for Calgary, the future still looks bright in cowtown.

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From Johnny Gaudreau finishing in the top-ten for scoring, to Mark Giordano scoring 20+ goals, or Sam Bennett‘s magical four goal performance against the Florida Panthers, there were lots of bright spots in the 2015-2016 season.

But make no mistake, this was not the result that the Flames expected.

Here is five reasons why the Calgary Flames suffered this season.

Goaltending:

The Calgary Flames have the leagues worst save percentage, so its safe to say the goalies let them down this year, especially in October and November.

Early in the season, it looked like the Flames goalies would have trouble catching a cold, as they frequently let in goals from absolutely brutal angles and put the Flames behind the eight-ball early into the season.

Karri Ramo gave the Flames solid goaltending for awhile before getting injured, making you wonder where the Flames might’ve been if he had been the bonafide starter from training camp and hadn’t been injured.

After Ramo went down, Jonas Hiller personally took it upon himself to guarantee the Flames would finish with a league worst save percentage and top-ten pick.

Thanks Jonas!

Joni Ortio played solid towards the end of the year and looks like a lock to be one of the two Flames goalies next year, although it was too little too late.

Poor Defence:

You can’t blame all the Flames woes on poor goaltending.

You know the defence is bad when a team who finished 26th overall actually had a top-ten offence.

The Flames actually gave up more goals than anybody else in the entire league!

While goaltending is a big part of that, poor defence certainly didn’t help either.

Too many time Flames defenders were caught puck-watching, or all attacking the same player at once, leaving uncovered players wide-open for tap-ins and backdoor passes.

Mark Giordano and Dougie Hamilton both got off to very slow starts while Dennis Wideman was fairly incompetent for most of his games this season.

By the time Calgary got their act together and started having better D-zone coverage, the Flames were well out of the playoffs.

But with the additions of Jyrki Jokipakka and Jakub Nakladal, it looks like the Flames will have a more-balanced defence next season, especially with a healthy T.J. Brodie and Hamilton playing closer to his potential at the start of the year.

Hopefully the Flames will be without the service of Ladislav Smid and Dennis Wideman next year, as a Giordano-Brodie-Hamilton-Engelland-Jokipakka-Nakladal defence seems to be a nice blend of offence and defence from the back-end.

Powerplay:

Despite finishing with the 22nd best power play, the Flames were absolutely awful on the PP for the first half of the season, leaving many to wonder if Calgary should reject the penalty and just continue five on five.

From horrible player usage to poor zone-entries, Calgary has been brutal at times this year on the man advantage.

On a positive note, the Flames were able to move-up from 30th overall to 22nd in a matter of months.

Why you might ask?

No Dennis Wideman.

Wideman’s suspension allowed for Dougie Hamilton to get more power-play time, which helped the Flames power-play by having a more dynamic and faster player on the point.

Adding Colborne to the power play actually seemed to help too, I know I was surprised as well. His ability to screen the goalie and deflect pucks really helped Calgary’s power play towards the end of the year.

Mikael Backlund going beast-mode and giving Calgary two effective power play lines didn’t hurt either.

But with the way Calgary is able to draw penalties, you have to wonder how many more games they would’ve won early on with a more effective power play.

Penalty-Killing:

Boy the Flames really struggled with special teams this year.

Count penalty-killing as another statistic the Flames finished dead-last in.

As a direct result of poor defence coverage and horrible goaltending, the Flames really didn’t have a chance on the PK.

The fact that Calgary was terrible on face-offs, 27th overall, and killing a penalty becomes almost impossible.

Being able to win the first draw would allow Calgary to kill 0ff the first 20-30 seconds of the penalty right off the bat.

While the Flames don’t take a lot of penalties, a successful team needs to have a decent penalty-kill unit. Going with the aforementioned defence corps and upgrading goaltending will certain help the Flames on the PK next season.

Inconsistency:

Last year the Flames were the Cardiac kids, playing so-so for the first two periods before turning it on in the third to win the game.

This year the Flames were completely devoid of last years magic, and failed to win games unless they put in a full 60 minutes.

Something they couldn’t do on a regular basis. Early on the Flames would get off to hot-starts, then let in an early goal and seemed to play defeated the rest of the game.

Than the Flames started getting off to better starts, but struggled mightily in the second frame. Third periods also weren’t nearly as kind to the Flames this year as they were last year.

Bottom line, the Flames for a large-part of the season failed to play full 60 minute games and it cost them.

Individual players were also very inconsistent.

Giordano and Hamilton both got off to bad starts, while each goaltender for the Flames had Jekyll and Hyde moments for Calgary.

Up front Sean Monahan and Mikael Backlund struggled early on in the season, before really catching fire later on in the season.

Essentially every forward except Johnny Gaudreau failed to play at a high-level for the majority of the seasons, with most players like Joe Colborne really started to hit their stride when the Flames were eliminated from the playoffs.

If Calgary had more consistency in their team game and from the players wearing their jersey, than Calgary might’ve been in the playoff race instead of watching the lottery odds.

Most off the reasons why the Flames struggled this year really snowballed into each other.

Bad goaltending led to the Flames over-compensating in their own end, which in turn caused even worse defensive-zone coverage and lead to even more goals against.

Having poor face-offs certainly didn’t help the Flames woeful special teams units, and neither did inconsistent performance from most of its players.

But now the Calgary Flames can identify the players like Wideman and Hiller who really hurt the teams chances this year and get rid of them before next season starts, leaving roster spots for the capable youngster in the organization.

Next: Flames Need To Cut Dead-Weight In The Offseason

The progression from players Gaudreau, Backlund, Monahan, Colborne, Bennett, Hamilton and so many others is really encouraging.

The fact that Calgary will likely add a goalie next season, and with the natural progression of Calgary’s young players, don’t expect the Flames to be in the NHL’s basement for long.

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