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The Calgary Flames were the cinderella story of the 2014-15 season.
Despite most - myself included - predicting they'd miss the playoffs the Flames managed to not only earn a playoff berth but win a round as well.
While the play of youngsters Sean Monahan, Johnny Gaudreau and T.J. Brodie, among others, certainly factored in the Flames did have luck on their side and several players were playing well over their heads.
The additions of Dougie Hamilton and Michael Frolik should help avoid a big step back from the team as a whole, however, there are a handful of players likely to come back down to earth in 2015-16.
One of those players is Jiri Hudler.
Entering 2014-15 Hudler had recorded 50 and 54 points over his last two full seasons (75+ games). Last season Hudler crushed his previous career highs in goals (25) and points (57) with 31 and 76 respectively.
While the play of Monahan and Gaudreau surely helped him inflate his numbers they are not sustainable over time, especially for a 31-year-old.
Hudler has always been an above average shooter throughout his career - he's scored on 15.1% of his shots - but last season he found twine on 19.6% of his shots. Had he shot his career average he would have scored 24 goals.
Hudler was the beneficiary of a lot of puck luck as pretty much everything he touched at full-strength ended up in the net moments later.
From 2007-08 to 2013-14 Hudler recorded a point on 71.85% of his team's 5 vs 5 goals while he was on the ice.
Last season he picked up a point on 90%(!) of all goals the Flames scored with him on the ice during 5 vs 5 play. That's nearly a 20% spike from his average over six prior seasons.
Daniel Sedin (92.6%) is the only player who recorded a point on a larger percentage of his team's goals than Hudler and he has a better track record of posting high numbers.
Prior to last season Sedin had recorded a point on just under 80% of all 5 vs 5 goals scored while he was on the ice. That's almost 10% higher than Hudler over the same span.
Lockout shortened season aside, only four players (minimum 1,000 minutes) have recorded a point on 90% or more of their team's 5 vs 5 goals since the 2008-09 season.
In other words it is extremely unlikely (impossible, even) that Hudler will be able to duplicate last season's numbers.
Expect the 20-25 goal, 50-60 point Hudler we've seen in recent years to surface again in 2015-16.
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