Calgary Flames: Figuring out Michael Stone’s Partner

It’s no secret that the Calgary Flames have a very formidable top four defense with the acquisition of Travis Hamonic. Now…

With Michael Stone signed to 3 year deal worth all the money (or 3.5M, whichever you prefer) it’s time to think about who should join him on the Calgary Flames bottom pair. There are a few options, both in the organization, and one UFA who presents and intriguing option. One thing to keep in mind with this last spot is that he’ll be limited to ~10-15 min. per night facing the lower lights on other teams, this makes the idea of bring up a farm hand much more palatable.

With that in mind, here are 3 players I think the Calgary Flames should look at as an option to play with Michael Stone on the Bottom pair.

UFA Patrick Wiercioch

Up first is the silently solid rear-guard who spent last season with the “AHL team in disguise” Colorado Avalanche, Patrick Wiercioch. This one is a bit of a long shot largely because it’s hard to see Treliving stepping in the FA pool again when he has so many other options available within the organization. That said, Wiercioch is a guy that would come cheep (his last deal was 0.8Mx1yr) and who’s had pretty good numbers (offensive production notwithstanding) prior to his time in Denver where he posted a 4-8-12 statline in 53 games.

First thing is first though, Wiercoch was less than impressive on a Colorado team that already wasn’t good. As stated above, his offensive production wasn’t particularly good, but that’s usually the case with him. The biggest departure from the Wiercioch we saw in Ottawa was in his underlying numbers (Corsi, Fenwick, scoring chance%).Essentially the things that help you see if a player is helping to move play in the right direction. For the case of comparing him just to his teammates I’ll be using the Relative numbers rather than just raw percentages. This will help to show how he compared to his fellow teammates.

Brief rundown on how these numbers work:

The stats that will be used are Rel.CF% which, like CF%, measures to total percentage of all shot attempts (on net, missed, and blocked) for the team out the total in the their games, rather than a raw% though though, the Rel. part breaks it down into that players impact relative to the teams average performace. Rel.FF% is a lot like Rel.CF% in that it measures shot attempts except it only measures shots-on-goal and missed shots. Lastly, Rel.SCF% does the same job in measuring relative to the team except it measures the teams scoring chances for and against. Positives numbers mean the team is better than the average for the team, negative mean they’re generally worse.

Calgary Flames

Last season he ranked 2^nd-to-last out of COL’s regular defenders in Rel.CF% and Rel.SCF% (-2.03 and -6.0 respectively), and dead last in FF% at -3.58 (all stats from Natural Stat Trick). This shows that, even compared to other COL defenders, Wiercioch was seeing the play go against him a lot.

Prior to this one year stop in COL, however, Wiercioch was a regular on the Ottawa Senator‘s blueline and his underlying numbers there were much more promising. During the 2015/16 season, Patrick Wiercoch placed 2^nd in all of those categories behind only Erik Karlsson. During that season he posted a Rel.CF% of 1.59, a Rel.FF% of 1.24 and a Rel.SCF% of -2.75.

With someone like a Wiercioch there’s obviously risk involved. Are the numbers he posted in Ottawa what we should expect from him normally and COL was just an aberration? Or did we see legitimate decline from him in Colorado and that’s who he is now? At only 26 years old the smart money is on this year being the one-off and that he’ll return to the form that we saw in Ottawa where he was one of their best.

EDIT: Wiercoch ended up signing with Vancouver.

LHD Brett Kulak

Next is the farm hand who’s had decent results in the games he has gotten with the big club. Over the past 2 seasons Brett Kulak has played 29 games (21 during the 2016/17 season) and amassed 3 points. Those aren’t eyepopping numbers but one must keep in mind this was in a bottom pairing role playing most of the time with Dennis Wideman and Deryk Engelland.

Like we did with Wiercioch, it would be wise to look at more than just the counting stats for young Kulak as they help to paint a more complete picture. Before diving into those numbers though a disclaimer is in order. With Kulak only having had played 21 games this season (and he only averaged 13:38 min. at 5on5 in those games) you have to take the sample size into account. That said, he has performed very well in the games he has played.

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In the 2016/17 Kulak ranked: 3^rd in Rel.CF% (1.32), 4^th in Rel.FF% (-2.29), and 5^th in Rel.SCF% (-2.59). In each of these he was well behind the top pair of Mark Giordano and Dougie Hamilton, TJ Brodie and Michael Stone also edging him out in scoring chances. That said, this isn’t bad at all for a player who spent most of his time in a 3^rd pair role with the lower tier defensive talent he Flames had.

Kulak is the most likely person to take this role next season. He’s young and ready to prove himself. In his time with the big club, he has proved himself to at least be reliable in limited minutes. The biggest questions surrounding young Brett is whether he can keep up the level of play we’ve seen him exhibit in short bursts, managing to carry a lesser partner vs. lower lights on the other teams. If this is the path Calgary Flames go, it’ll be interesting to see just how much, if at all, Kulak is able to raise his game.

That said, there is one more option that Flames brass/Glen Gulutzan could see as a fit…

LHD Matt Bartkowski

This is the nuclear option. Playing Matt Bartkowski on any sort of regular bases signals, to me, that the Flames don’t care about how their bottom pair performs. Over his career Bartkowski has never been anything more than 6/7 Dman. It won’t come down to this, he will likely be on the roster just so the Flames have someone to be a “veteran presence”. He was only ever signed so the Flames would have a defenseman that met their exposure requirements. Just for fun though, let’s take a look at how Bartkowski has performed in his NHL career.

Through 235 career NHL games, Matt Bartkowski has put up 44 points in 235 games (stats from NHL.com). That’s not terrible for a 3^rd pair guy, certainly acceptable for a defensive dman. Where he really falls off, however, is his ability to push play the right way.

Last season, Bartkowski ranked in the bottom three on Calgary’s blueline in all of Rel.CF%, Rel.FF% and Rel.SCF%. The previous season, with an awful Canucks team, Bartkowski ranked no better than 2^nd last in any of those. Worse even than Luca Sbisa. Finally, a look at his last season with the Bruins (also known as the season that ended with Boston trading Dougie Hamilton to Calgary). This season Bartkowski only played 47 games, in those 47 games, however, Bartkowski ranked no higher than 4^th  last in any of those categories.

Bartkowski wouldn’t be the answer for Calgary and the Flames brass likely knows this. He will probably see his season spent in the press-box or down in the AHL to provide the young blueliners on the Stockton Heat with a veteran presence to learn from.