Wins and losses ultimately dictate who a hockey team really is over the course of an 82-game National Hockey League season, but the underlying numbers can often tell a much deeper story. For the Calgary Flames, the cold, hard standings show a franchise navigating a transitional period. Yet, a closer inspection of the analytics suggests that this group might actually deserve a much better fate than what their current win-loss record implies.
Entering the current campaign, this season felt like a lost one for the Calgary Flames before the puck even dropped on opening night, and for a rebuilding franchise, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. With multiple key veterans shipped off in recent trades, a 2026 draft class featuring six high-value players in the first three rounds, and a clear, conscious effort from general manager Craig Conroy to construct a significantly younger roster, the overarching strategy was clear. It felt like the only thing the Flames were genuinely concerned about was how close they could position themselves to the top of next summer’s NHL draft lottery.
That trajectory seemed right on schedule when the team stumbled out of the gate with a disastrous five-game losing streak to open the season, getting outscored by a lopsided 27-8 margin over that span. Those early struggles threatened to make the Flames live up to the extremely low expectations that external observers had set for them. However, rather than spiraling further into dysfunction, the team has noticeably settled in ever since. The underlying metrics reveal that this roster might be quite underrated by casual observers who only glance at the nightly scores.
For starters, Calgary ranks an impressive 10th in the entire NHL in 5-on-5 Corsi For percentage, sitting at 51.18 percent according to Natural Stat Trick. This vital metric measures the overall share of shot attempts a team takes versus the attempts they face while playing at even strength. In modern hockey analytics, Corsi is typically utilized to quantify puck possession and territorial control. When a team sits above the 50 percent threshold, it indicates that they are spending more time driving play and generating opportunities in the offensive zone than their opponents are.
So, if the territorial play and possession metrics look encouraging, why is there such a massive gap between Calgary’s underlying performance and their actual results on the scoreboard?
The answer comes down to a few compounding factors, chief among them being plain old bad luck. The Flames currently possess the second-worst team shooting percentage in the entire league, converting at a meager 6.45 percent. More concerningly, they also sit dead last in high-danger shooting percentage, clicking at just 8.18 percent. To put that into perspective, the team has managed to score a paltry nine goals on 182 high-danger scoring chances created through this stretch of the season.
While the puck simply does not seem to be bouncing their way when they get into prime scoring areas, these numbers also underscore a glaring roster limitation: the Flames lack a true, elite finisher. Young forward Matt Coronato has shown exciting flashes of that offensive potential at various points in his developing career, and veteran Joel Farabee has put together a fine start to his tenure in Calgary. Even so, the total absence of a high-end, dynamic sniper has severely hindered this team’s ability to remain competitive in tight games and cleanly convert on the high-grade opportunities they are working so hard to create.
To further evaluate this phenomenon, hockey analysts frequently turn to PDO, a metric that has become the standard way to assess what fans traditionally refer to as ‘puck luck.’ PDO is calculated by simply adding a team’s 5-on-5 on-ice shooting percentage together with their on-ice save percentage. Because these specific percentages fluctuate significantly and are largely subject to randomness on a year-to-year basis, they tend to regress toward the league-wide mean over time.
In sum, a remarkably low PDO indicates that a team is either scoring on far fewer of its shots than normal, letting in more goals than usual, or—in the unique case of the Calgary Flames this season—suffering from both simultaneously. Calgary currently ranks dead last across the entire NHL in this specific category. Like almost every team in hockey history that has experienced an extreme PDO outlier at either end of the spectrum, significant positive regression is mathematically expected to arrive sooner rather than later.
This theory is further supported by special teams play. This is a team that boasts the fourth-ranked power play unit in the entire league, even though they have earned significantly fewer man-advantage opportunities than the powerhouse clubs sitting ahead of them in the standings. Clearly, there is a functional offensive foundation here. The players just cannot seem to secure the desired results in the goal column during 5-on-5 play that their hard work probably deserves.
On the defensive side of things, the story shifts slightly, though the theme of missed opportunity remains consistent. The Flames could really use a timely save or two from their goaltending tandem to steady the ship.
Defensively, Calgary ranks a respectable 14th in expected goals against with 41.62. Yet, despite keeping structural defensive breakdowns to a reasonable level, they have actually surrendered the fourth-most total goals against in the league this season. Goaltender Devin Cooley has been a remarkable, uplifting story and thoroughly deserves his flowers for stepping up when called upon. However, his performance has inevitably brought about a much larger, more pressing conversation regarding Dustin Wolf that the organization needs to have.
Wolf is currently carrying a tough .869 save percentage alongside a 3.75 goals-against average. Among NHL goaltenders with at least 10 starts under their belt this season, Wolf ranks an alarming 31st out of 33 netminders in goals saved above expected, according to tracking data from MoneyPuck.
Even last year represented a massive statistical departure from what Flames fans had rightfully come to expect of Wolf following his remarkable rookie campaign, a stellar breakout that saw him deservedly named as a Calder Trophy finalist. Unfortunately, the opening stretch of this current season has turned into an all-time low point for the young goaltender. It remains a source of immense frustration for the coaching staff and fanbase alike to realize that, given how well the underlying numbers suggest the skaters have played in front of him, the team could easily be sitting in a much healthier position in the standings if Wolf were performing anywhere near his ceiling.
That being said, the reality of the standings shows that the Flames still find themselves just four points back of a playoff spot in a wide-open Pacific Division at the time of writing. While the division certainly isn’t an impenetrable gauntlet of elite powerhouses, it demonstrates that a sustained run of bounces finally falling their way could easily make for a surprisingly fun final season at the historic Sc Saddledome before the franchise transitions into its next era.
Ultimately, all of these complex analytics and fancy tracking numbers suggest that the structural process implemented by the coaching staff and management is genuinely good for the Flames, meaning positive results should logically follow soon. While it might still be argued that a high draft pick serves the franchise’s long-term interests better than a frantic push for a lower playoff seed, Flames fans should take genuine comfort in the knowledge that, through the first 20 games of the season, there is a fiercely competitive hockey roster here that is certainly not worth tearing apart entirely.