Q: Would like to see your analysis of Bahl — he has looked good by the eye test to me, but what are his underlying (numbers) looking like? Has he been good value for the return for Markstrom?
I’ve liked what I’ve seen from Kevin Bahl. By eye, he’s a steady presence who can erase offensive-zone entries with a very long wrong reach.
He’s a decent skater for a man his size (6-foot-6), which means he’s not plagued by the poor mobility you usually see in big-body defenders.
His underlying numbers to start the year were good, but they have taken a major beating lately. He’s now second-last amongst regular Flames defencemen in terms of shots and chances against ratio at even strength (about 42%). Only Daniil Miromanov is worse.
To be fair to Bahl, he and Rasmus Andersson are playing the toughest minutes on the team. Both of them have spent the most time against the opposition’s stars this year (more than 116 minutes for Bahl), and no blueliner starts more often in the defensive zone than the 24-year-old.
That’s a tough row to hoe for a player who only played his first full NHL season last year and he’s a bit over his head in that role currently. But it speaks volumes that the coaching staff already is comfortable deploying him against the heavies.
Give him some more time. Bahl’s never going to score a ton, but I think there’s a legitimate shutdown defender in there.
Q: How concerned should I be about Sharangovich? Underlying numbers aren’t good and the eye test is worse.
It has been an ugly start to the year for the 31-goal scorer. After getting injured out of the gate, Yegor Sharangovich returned to the lineup just as the strange magic that animated the team through the first games or so was dissipating.
Like many of the club’s forwards, Sharangovich is really struggling to find offensive chemistry with anyone right now. He’s getting shots at roughly the same rate as last year, but they are of poorer quality — his expected shooting percentage relative to 2023-24 has dropped by about 2%.
The main difference has been his finishing, however. Sharangovich scored on over 17% of his shots in all situations in his first year as a Flame, but he’s firing at just 6.9% right now.
The truth of the player is probably somewhere in between. Scoring at a nearly an 18% clip is remarkably rare, even if you grant the player has an above-average shot and release (he does). But there’s little chance he’ll continue to shoot at a sub-10% rate forever as well.
Q: What would you do to fix the power play with the current personnel?
No doubt this is a question haunting the Flames coaching staff currently, too. The team currently sits 30th out of 32 teams with just a 13% success rate.
Sometimes power plays can hit dry spells despite managing a lot of shots and chances, but that’s not really the case for the Flames. To date, they have the ninth-worst shot rate and the seventh-worst expected goal rate in the league.
Calgary’s problems on the PP are legion. They have a lot of trouble gaining the zone with authority and establishing sustained puck control. So the first fix will be finding a way to consistently gain entry with speed, or at least play a more effective dump-and-retrieval game.
The second issue is they aren’t very dangerous even when they get set up. At the start of the season, the first unit seemed to be experimenting with a rare behind-the-net PP tactic.
This is a formation that sees the left and right wingers establish themselves at or even behind the goal line with a net-front presence and two bodies at the point. It’s counter-intuitive, but can lead to swing plays around the net and dangerous passes into the crease or slot.
Andrei Kuzemenko seemed to figure prominently in this scheme at first, but the club has settled back into a more traditional setup. It would be interesting to see them return to that tactic, at least since nothing else seems to be working.
Q: You’re the GM of the Flames. Which players are we selling high on come the deadline, based on performance this year compared to normal?
Dan Vladar is the most obvious candidate. Not only is he having his best season by far, but the Flames also have Dustin Wolf (elite results in the NHL this year) and Devin Cooley (best goalie in the AHL to date).
Vladar is a pending free agent and more than a few contenders seem to be struggling with their netminding. If that continues, he would be the most logical player to auction off.
Kuzmenko should also be on the block, although with just one goal in 18 games, Craig Conroy will have to hope he turns things around and looks more like the player they saw at the end of last season. Otherwise, there won’t be much demand for his services.
Andersson currently leads the Flames in scoring and, as mentioned, plays the toughest minutes on the back end with his partner Bahl. As a right-handed defender who has cracked 40-plus points twice in his career and has one year left on an extremely reasonable contract ($4.55M cap hit), there’s no doubt there would be significant interest in the player if Conroy made him available.
Andersson isn’t a free agent until after next season, though, so my guess is the offer would have to be extremely generous to move the needle.
In Conroy’s shoes, I would certainly listen if motivated GMs started calling me mid-year about Andersson. The player will be 29 when his contract expires and it’s unlikely he’ll re-sign in Calgary anyway.
Q: After a *very* rough start this year, Miromanov has looked better and his underlying numbers have shown significant improvement over the past few games, looking more like last year’s version. Should they stick with him as Weegar’s partner for now?
Last year, Miromanov settled in next to Weegar and seemed extremely comfortable down the stretch in Calgary, even as the team more or less fell apart after the trade deadline. No doubt that is why he has been afforded so much rope next to MacKenzie Weegar this season.
I believe the Andersson-Bahl pairing has been fed to the wolves in part due to the major struggles of Miromanov. Last season, no Flame played more minutes against other team’s stars than Weegar, but this year so far he’s third (with Miro fourth).
The duo was positively run over at even strength in October, however, posting the worst shot and chances rates on the team. Even now Miromanov is at the bottom of the ladder, despite a few weeks of improvement.
There doesn’t seem to be anyone on the horizon to bump Miromanov from the top-four rotation, so his improvement should keep him next to Weegar (assuming it continues).
Brayden Pachal has had a very good start to the year in contrast, but he is a solid wrung down in terms of deployment against good players. Other third-pairing guys like Jake Bean and Tyson Barrie spend a similar ratio of minutes against the big guns, so Ryan Huska isn’t quite ready to give Pachal a promotion. Yet.
The post is Miromanov’s to lose for now, especially if he continues to trend in the right direction. But another extended period of getting clobbered (and dragging down the extremely reliable Weegar with him) would spell a change. Especially if Pachal continues to excel in his depth role.