Calgary Flames: Five best players through the first 15 games
By Ramina Shlah
Five: Dougie Hamilton
It was somewhat hard to narrow down which defenceman to include, but ultimately, I went with Dougie Hamilton. Dougie so far has two goals and five assists in 15 games. Not a whole lot, but he also contributes in other areas of the ice.
While T.J. Brodie has been contributing offensively, he has somewhat quieted down a little bit these last few games, and like I mentioned, Dougie contributes elsewhere. He’s currently third on the team in CF% at 5v5 at 58.10%. However, one of the players ahead of him is Jaromir Jagr who’s only played in six games this season (stats courtesy of Natural Stat Trick).
Not including Jagr since he’s only played in six games, Dougie has the best CF% Rel. on the team at 9.22%. While it’s not incredibly high, this still means that the team basically performs better and generates more shot attempts with him on the ice. He’s also fifth among all defencemen in the NHL in that category. And while this would be higher with defencemen since they spend the most amount of time on the ice, he’s still leading the Flames in that category.
Related Story: Dougie Hamilton Ranked 16th Best Defenceman by NHL.com
Dougie is also leading the Flames in iCF with 83 (5v5), which is 24 higher than the second highest and his partner, Mark Giordano, for essentially the same amount of TOI. In high-danger shot attempts at 5v5, Dougie has two which isn’t a whole lot, but it’s still the highest among the defencemen on the Flames.
In fact, Dougie is second among all defensemen for iCF, right after Brent Burns, and is third among all skaters in the NHL. He may not have a lot of points, but the more he continues this up, those points will come. He’s not generating as much offence as he was last season, he but’s still a factor on the ice when the Calgary Flames have success. And for that, he’s number five on our list.