Sutter keying in on two major areas of improvement for slumping Flames
Darryl Sutter has the solutions for his slumping Calgary Flames.
Score more. Save more.
“The two areas that we clearly have to get better at as a team, No. 1 is our team save percentage, and No. 2 is our shooting percentage,” Sutter said Saturday. “They are the two things that are at the bottom of the league, so that’s how you get back to .500.
“Save percentage. Shooting percentage.”
"You've got to get points – you be can be happy with your efforts but our focus now has to get back to .500 and push for a playoff spot again. That's pretty clear."
Hear from Darryl ahead of tonight's Hockey Night In Canada clash vs. Winnipeg. pic.twitter.com/TJnAR0CSwo
— Calgary Flames (@NHLFlames) November 12, 2022
The Flames are mired in a seven-game losing skid they hope to shuttle at the Saddledome on Saturday, though the coach has seen some improvement already despite the latest results. Fixing Sutter’s areas of concern would certainly go a long way to netting two points per outing on top of it.
Calgary ranks 31st in the NHL with an 8.00 shooting percentage, ahead of only the St. Louis Blues (7.93%). The club’s collective save percentage sits slightly better at 29th with an .883 mark.
“You’ve just got to bear down a little bit,” newcomer Nazem Kadri said. “Guys know how to score in here and they know how to play hockey. We’re good players. For us, the way it’s trending sometimes you can start to get those breaks and you start to focus on them more often than you would if you’re on a three-game winning streak.
“For us, we’re going to put our heads down and work.”
"There's no moral victories in here – we've got high standards."
Nazem Kadri talks to media about turning things around tonight when the #Flames host the Jets. pic.twitter.com/Yub99jDEeV
— Calgary Flames (@NHLFlames) November 12, 2022
Last season, the Flames were in the middle of the pack with a 9.72 shooting percentage, but boasted the seventh-best save percentage at .909.
The collective stats would’ve put the home side in the top 10 — a sharp contrast to the 31st they currently sit.
“You’ve just got to go out and play,” alternate captain Mikael Backlund said. “It’s down to that. We all know we’re good players in here and we know we have a really good team. We have to go out and just play, play really hard, compete, win every battle, just have that work-hard mentality. If you do the little things right and you feel like you’re not feeling right, you just have to play a little simple and eventually things will happen.
“We’ve got to get back to that.”
Calgary, analytics will suggest, did just that in a three-game road trip earlier in the week.
The run, however, netted them a single point in outings against the New York Islanders, New Jersey Devils, and Boston Bruins.
As such, the trio of setbacks leaves the Flames winless in November and without a victory since a 4-1 dumping of the Pittsburgh Penguins on October 25 with an 0-5-2 mark.
“There’s no moral victories in here,” Kadri said. “We’ve got high standards and we understand, but at the end of the day you’ve got to call it like it is. Every single loss that we’ve had has been a one-goal game, excluding empty nets. We’ve been right in it.
“Bounce here and there changes the outcome of the game and we’ve got to be on the positive receiving side of those.”
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