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Opening Your Presents Early |
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Ah the classic trope.
A child sneaks downstairs in the late hours before Christmas morning to open up his gifts. Carefully re-wrapping each present before returning to bed.
When morning comes and Christmas is in full swing — the child feels robbed of the magic of the holiday. This is usually accompanied with a poor acting performance upon each present being unwrapped.
Flames fans are that child today.
Imagine the elation if general manager Brad Treliving had, instead of being proactive, pulled off all of this season’s moves today. The Flames would be crowned the winners of the deadline, fans would be in pure ecstasy, and Brad wouldn’t have to be reminding us that most of the presents were opened earlier.
That said, Ryan Carpenter isn’t nothing.
Let’s look at the first trade.
To Calgary
Ryan Carpenter
To Chicago
2024 5th round pick
Carpenter
At the age of 31, Ryan certainly carries less mileage than Brad Richardson, who was claimed off waivers today by the Vancouver Canucks.
He’s gotten into 59 games this year. His underlying stats are very similar to Richardson’s.
Richardson has an xGF/60 of 1.7, Carpenter is at 1.77. Expected goals against per 60? 2.34 Brad, 2.33 Ryan. Average time on ice? 9:24 Brad, 9:59 Ryan.
Very similar on paper. They’re even around the same size. Both 6’0”. Carpenter(200) is ten pounds heavier than Richardson(190).
One thing that hurts is the faceoff percentage. Richardson was a godly 58.82% this season. You better believe Canucks head coach Bruce Boudreau is licking his lips at that number. Carpenter, meanwhile, is a very respectable 52.25%.
Carpenter produces offence at a slightly better rate. 11 points in 59 games Vs. four points in 27 games.
Fun fact: two of Carpenter’s three goals are game winning goals.
An important one: hits. Ryan Carpenter has recorded 123 on the season. That number would put him fourth on the Flames behind only Lucic, Lewis and Zadorov. Gudbranson and Coleman have 122 and 121 respectively.
OK. Stats are for the lazy. How does this guy actually look on the ice?
Following the trade I did a quick viewing of Chicago’s 6-4 loss to the Jets yesterday.
The good
He hits. He registered three hits and two of them knocked the player off their feet. Speaking of feet, his speed is decent. It doesn’t seem like a weakness in his game. He joined a few rushes and may put up slightly better numbers in a sharper system with any notion of consistency. We’ll get to that.
The bad
He doesn’t seem as defensively savvy as Richardson. He was only on the ice for one goal against in a 6-4 loss. It was a powerplay goal against — but it was largely his fault. Instead of maintaining the box formation on the PK, he drifted down out of position to cover a player in front. That left one of the deadlier one-timers in the NHL, Kyle Connor, completely unchecked. Darryl would bench him for that one.
To his credit, the rest of the game he looked solid.
The Blackhawks are an abomination
His usage is another head scratcher.
In 589:51 of 5v5 ice time over 59 games, Carpenter hasn’t really stuck on one line. In fact, none of the Blackhawks have. No player has played over 200:00 on the same line this season.
Ryan’s most common line has been with MacKenzie Entwhistle and Henrik Borgström. The unit has only played 53:55 together, but post an absurdly low 0.90 goals against per 60 minutes on the ice. That’s not even at the cost of offence. They score 2.56 goals per 60 minutes of ice. If one were a proponent of fancy stats, you could argue that this line is far better than Debrincat-Strome-Kane.
It’s not.
Tack it up to a coaching change, but you have to wonder what the hell happened to the hundreds of minutes Carpenter played. His next highest minutes on a unit is Hagel-Toews-Carpenter at 47:40. One would assume he was there to make space for the other two.
Scouring through Blackhawks line stats on MoneyPuck looks like a question in math class along the lines of “How many different combinations can you make using only Blackhawks forwards within them only playing between 200-10 minutes together?”
It may not be the answer the teacher is looking for, but the 21-22 Blackhawks went for 71 different line combinations playing over ten minutes together. Shield your eyes!
Let’s just say it’s fair to assume Ryan Carpenter hasn’t gotten a lot of consistency this season.
Suddenly this story of a child opening presents early includes an epilogue where he is handed an extra present. Upon unwrapping it he is so astounded by it’s inexplicable nature that he losses his mind trying to understand where it came from.
Also, the Flames sent AHL goaltender Michael McNiven to the Senators organization in exchange for future considerations. He played in 11 games and posted a 4.04GAA and .869 save percentage. Hopefully he finds himself a fit there.
The San Jose Sharks are in town tomorrow. Puck drop is at 7pm mst.
@Trevor_Neufeld
Statistics courtesy of moneypuck.com, naturalstattrick.com, and nhl.com.
Calgary Flames Blogger • 
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