Flames' playoff hopes ride on five low-key excellent players (Trending Topics)

You have to give the Calgary Flames some credit.

About halfway through their season, they’re holding onto a wild card spot and are only one point out of a divisional playoff slot. And you can’t say it’s because they’ve been lucky. At least, not in the traditional sense.

They are lucky insofar as they get to play in the worst division in hockey at a time when their conference as a whole is having a bit of a down year. How bad is the West overall? Vancouver is one point out of a playoff spot (albeit with two extra games played). How bad is the Pacific? Vancouver is four points out of a top-three slot.

Calgary isn’t a particularly good team, though. They have a sub-50 adjusted 5-on-5 number in CF% (49.9), scoring chances (47.3), and expected goals (47.9). They’ve given up three more goals than they’ve scored; they’re ranked ninth in overall goals for, and ninth from the bottom in goals against. And as far as luck goes, their PDO as a team is seventh-lowest in the league, weighed down primarily by some rotten goaltending in the season’s early goings.

So the question is: Why are they on pace 90-plus points? It basically boils down to one line and one defensive pair being reliably excellent, and some solid performances from one of the team’s best players.

Have a look at the Flames’ points leaderboard. It’s not pretty. There’s Johnny Gaudreau at 26 in 30 games, which isn’t great or anything by his own lofty standards. A few spots down is Sean Monahan — new contract in hand — with just 22 in 40. Former No. 4 pick Sam Bennett only has 9-9-18 in 40. These were the guys who were supposed to drive the offense, and with the exception of a middling Gaudreau performance, they’re not getting much going.

All the way at the back, Brian Elliott only recently pulled out of his dreadful start to the season (.885 across 13 appearances in October and November), and it’s a good thing projected backup Chad Johnson is sitting at .920 right now or the whole season would likely be lost already.

[Join a Yahoo Daily Fantasy Hockey contest now]

So it’s a really good thing Glen Gulutzan got his act together after the first month of the season and put Dougie Hamilton with Mark Giordano, because neither was being well-served by being paired with boat anchors like Deryk Engelland, Jyrki Jokipakka, and Dennis Wideman. At this, after spending the big chunk of the season together, they’re the only Flames defenders with underlying numbers north of 50 percent, but the good news is they’re well above that threshold. Together, they’re at more than 57.7 percent CF, with an expected-goals percentage of 60. Sixty. These two are a meat grinder together in a way that very few defenders in the league can be. They not only drive scoring chances — giving the Flames more than two more high- or medium-danger chances per hour when they’re on the ice versus when they’re off — but they also suppress them, reducing chances against by 0.8 per 60.

The Giordano-Hamilton pairing carries an expected-goals number relative to the rest of the team is plus-13.7. It’s the highest relative share of expected goals in the league among pairings with at least 300 minutes together, and tells you plenty about their ability to both generate and suppress dangerous offense. Moreover, this is the Flames’ top pairing, eating huge minutes, matched against the toughest competition on the team, and starting most of their shifts in their own end.

And because they’re two higher-end offensive defensemen in addition to their shutdown roles, they also rank first and second among Flames defensemen in points, with Hamilton at 22 (same as Monahan) and Giordano at 17 (same as big-money UFA Troy Brouwer).

Part of the reason for this pairing’s dominance, though, is the Flames’, ahem, checking line of Mikael Backlund, Matthew Tkachuk (a rookie thrown into the deep end on a shutdown line and excelling beyond even the wildest expectations), and Michael Frolik. They are likewise one of the dominant trios in the entire league, and have played about one-third of their total minutes on the ice at the same time as Giordano and Hamilton.

Their unadjusted stats as a five-man unit at full strength? It’s more than 2.9 goals per 60 minutes, and only 0.6 against. (That comes through a .974 save percentage at 5-on-5, which is of course unsustainably high.) But moreover, their CF% together is 60.6 percent, generating 73.5 attempts per 60, and conceding just 47.8. If you can out-attempt your opponents by almost 25 shots every hour, you’re putting yourself in an incredible position to succeed. Especially when your offensive zone start percentage is only about 40 percent.

The forward group is also the heaviest-used in terms of deployment, freeing up Johnny Gaudreau, Alex Chiasson, and Sean Monahan to take more than 60 percent of their faceoffs in the attacking zone. Despite that extra luxury, which any coach would be wise to give his most gifted scorers, the scoring line has an expected-goals number of 46.3 together. Flat-out not good enough.

In fact, Calgary’s Big Five, along with depth players Matt Stajan and Micheal Ferland, are the only Flames with a CF% of greater than 50 for the year. In expected goals, Ferland drops out of that group, leaving only Stajan and the shutdown players.

And the thing is, their impact could actually be bigger, at least in theory. Hamilton still plays fewer minutes than Dennis Wideman (less than 19:30 a night, while Wideman’s at almost 21), and Tkachuk’s TOI per night isn’t really increasing as the season goes along either. You can understand where Gulutzan would want to protect his younger players from the rigors of heavier usage, but as the season goes along it wouldn’t be too surprising to see them get pressed into more service simply because of how dominant they’ve been.

There can be too much of a good thing, of course. But even if this group drops off a little bit, and they’re only, say a 55 percent corsi and 60 percent goals group, that’s still far, far, far better than anything else Gulutzan can put on the ice. Right now it’s just about the only set of players he can send over the boards and expect reliably good results.

And if this team wants to push for another playoff appearance (which they of course do) then it’ll be vital to either get everyone else up to speed without breaking up this line and pairing, or use them even more often. Otherwise, the Flames’ playoff hopes are likely to fade down the stretch.

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

All stats via Corsica unless otherwise stated.

MORE FROM YAHOO HOCKEY: