Tanguay - To Score or Not to Score

I finally got around to compiling some "basic plus" stats for Tanguay - namely the ESP/60 and PPP/60 numbers. I also managed to dredge up the stats for some of the other Av's forwards last year - mainly to place Tanguay in the context of his teammates.

Anyhoo, here are the results:



Observations:

- Overall, Im fairly pleased with the results. Tanguay played more than 930 minutes of even strength hockey last season and, as you can see, he managed to produce points at a pretty significant clip (3.15 points per 60 minutes). He played the third most (forward) ES minutes on the team (behind Sakic and Laperriere) and still managed to be tops in terms of ESP/60. From a Calgary Flames perspective, this is very good news. As you may or may not know from the previous work I put in, the Flames were nothing short of horrible at ES scoring in 05/06. Calgary's top (high minutes) player, Jarome Iginla, only scored at a rate of 1.80/60 minutes last year: that's barely over half of Tanguay's number! Hell, even Ian Laperriere did better than Jarome! Clearly, the Flames needed some help in this department. While there are probably some team/systemic issues that contributed to Calgary's weak ESP stats, adding the top ESP player from the Avs is still a big step in the right direction.

- The PPP/60 results were a little surprising, largely due to the number Andrew Brunette managed to put up. It's not like he benefitted from a couple of 2nd assists on the occasional PP shift either - Brunette played 310 PP minutes, good for 4th most among forwards. As for Tanguay, he played 354 minutes (2nd behind Sakics 438) and managed to generate about 4.92 points/60 minutes played. Comparison-wise, Tanguay's PPP/60 and PP minutes played stats are almost identical to Damond Langkow's numbers from last season (4.94 PPP/60, 352 minutes). Between the two teams overall, the rookie Marek Svatos managed to score the highest in terms of powerplay efficiency (5.62 PPP/60), while Kristian Huselius came in a close second (5.54 PPP/60). Svatos played about 70 less minutes less than Juice on the PP thanks to his injury shortened season, but it's hard to say whether that would make a huge difference (I have no interest in trying to calculate variance and statistical significance...sorry).

As I mentioned, Im pleased with the results. Tanguay's main strength, ES production, was the Flame's primary area of weakness last season. The challenge, or course, will be to adequately harnass the potential for more ES goals that Tanguay's addition brings. He obviously CAN get the job done, but the question remains WILL HE be able to do it under the relatively "offensively oppressive" Flames system...