Do faceoffs matter?

[Dr Beinfest]

The beautiful thing is we have a plethora of non-inferential stats to start with. First two question to ask would be “is there a direct correlation to winning faceoffs in the offensive zone and scoring goals” and “is there a direct correlation to losing faceoffs in the defensive zone and conceding goals?” These numbers of course might be biased by subsequent zone re-entry.

 

[Beau Knows]

I feel like it matters less than it did in the DPE, but I don't know if there are numbers to back that up.

When getting possession of the puck in the opponents zone was more difficult, winning faceoffs in their zone (and not letting them win them in yours) was a bigger deal. These days the game is more open and rule changes have made it easier to get into the opponents zone, so I don't think faceoffs are quite as important now.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

Yes, they mean a lot.

Of course they matter. But their importance is overstated because they have traditionally been used as something to measure if a player is good defensively or not.

But you can’t tell me that theyre not important at all. Take your teams 1 PP unit. Imagine if the centre was 60% on the dot. Now imagine he’s 40% on the dot. It’s really hard to argue that it doesn’t make a difference in specials teams scenarios.

I have literally never heard that.

 

[Took a pill in Sbisa]

Situationally, faceoffs matter alot.

But as far as FO% with individual players: If two centres took 9 faceoffs against each other where one won 5 of them, the center that won 1 more faceoff out of 9 would be considered elite at faceoffs, and the center that only won 4 would be considered terrible at faceoffs.

Thats bananas

 

[Sykur]

Some faceoffs matter more than others.

Center ice/beginning of period faceoffs don't matter at all.
Neutral zone faceoffs matter the least
Attacking/defensive zone faceoffs matter more
Special teams neutral zone faceoffs matter a lot
Special teams attacking/defensive zone faceoffs matter the most

Too lazy to look up the stats, but I'm willing to speculate that teams with the best special teams faceoffs also have the best PPs/PKs.

 

[TruePowerSlave]

Even the worst team wins almost half of their faceoffs, it's not nearly as big of a deal as it's made out to be. Teams can be fantastic at draws and be terrible or they can suck at them and win a cup.

 

[Elvs]

I feel like all stat discussions nowadays only relates to 5 on 5 and a 82 game regular season. Of course, with a larger sample size, we get more accurate depictions. And so, over time, faceoffs probably doesn't matter a whole lot. But on the power play or penalty kill in a game 7 Stanley Cup final? Yes, they matter. At that point, every inch of the game matters. If you don't think so, my guess is you never saw your favourite team in the finals.

 

[Sergei Shirokov]

Yes they matter alot, particularly on special teams

 

[Samsquanch]

I'll preface this by saying analytics are largely garbage and total pseudo science. But this is an easy one that the eye tests and the excel sheets can find some common ground on together.

Every player, coach and GM who's made it far enough to be in the NHL would vote yes they matter a lot. Like so so much. A proper coach will debate hard with themselves and sometimes even throw a worse line over the boards if they're fairly sure their "better" line is going to lose the draw. And this happens several times a period, not just every game or two.

And not a single one of them would vote differently. You can't possibly believe any differently if you've played and/or studied the game closely, and you are trying to win.

It will absolutely be the difference between two evenly matched teams - especially in a playoff series.

 

[Samsquanch]

Even the worst team wins almost half of their faceoffs, it's not nearly as big of a deal as it's made out to be. Teams can be fantastic at draws and be terrible or they can suck at them and win a cup.

<<insert fart noise>>

Sorry hombre but dead wrong (if were talking about evenly matched teams). That's what the stat sheet would tell you no doubt. But it's really not about how many faceoffs you win or lose.

Its about which faceoffs the team wins or loses. If your team is winning the most important draws and giving up a lot of them in the neutral zone, the collective team faceoff win % becomes so much less relevant.

 

[TruePowerSlave]

<<insert fart noise>>

Sorry hombre but dead wrong (if were talking about evenly matched teams). That's what the stat sheet would tell you no doubt. But it's really not about how many faceoffs you win or lose.

Its about which faceoffs the team wins or loses. If your team is winning the most important draws and giving up a lot of them in the neutral zone, the collective team faceoff win % becomes so much less relevant.

Faceoffs do matter. However, if it was such a crucial part of the game there should be some correlation between team success and faceoff percentages.

The reigning cup champs were one of the absolute worst faceoff teams and went 16-4.

 

[Samsquanch]

Faceoffs do matter. However, if it was such a crucial part of the game there should be some correlation between team success and faceoff percentages.

The reigning cup champs were one of the absolute worst faceoff teams and went 16-4.

They were a powerhouse and that's not what I meant or said.

For two evenly matched teams in a dogfight of a playoff series, it matters.

For a well built and coached "lesser" tier team that's overachieving and punching above their own weight class - faceoffs absolutely matter.

We could debate on the definition of "what matters" for days. Goals matter. Saves matter. Special teams matter. So do faceoffs imo.

But if we're talking about two well matched teams in a 7 game series, and one of those teams has two top line Cs that are faceoff wizards versus the other team with two bottom line Cs that are good on the draw - im taking the former and not the latter every time.

 

[TruePowerSlave]

They were a powerhouse and that's not what I meant or said.

For two evenly matched teams in a dogfight of a playoff series, it matters.

For a well built and coached "lesser" tier team that's overachieving and punching above their own weight class - faceoffs absolutely matter.

We could debate on the definition of "what matters" for days. Goals matter. Saves matter. Special teams matter. So do faceoffs imo.

But if we're talking about two well matched teams in a 7 game series, and one of those teams has two top line Cs that are faceoff wizards versus the other team with two bottom line Cs that are good on the draw - im taking the former and not the latter every time.

You can look at a games, series, playoff runs or seasons faceoff percentage and cannot make any conclusion how it went. A team can crush it on the dot and be one of the first up the draft podium, similarly they can suck ass and win a cup. The results vary wildly and there doesn't seem to be much of a link between a succesful hockey team and faceoff percentages.

 

[ijuka]

Option number 2 is correct.

Faceoffs matter, but their importance is often overstated. During a shift, possession changes many times. There can be 5, 6 possession changes during a shift. A faceoff will only affect initial possession. Additionally, a great faceoff player will win a faceoff 55% of the time, a bad one 45%. So for that shift's possession, being good at faceoffs is a very small amount of additional possession. A couple percentage points, perhaps.

The fact that option 1 is leading this poll makes option 2's case of faceoffs being overrated even more likely.

 

[ole ole]

Have seen a lot of debate between hockey people on this subject. Many analytics types don't think they contribute much to overall success, while the old school has always placed a lot of importance on winning faceoffs.

I'm somewhere in the middle where I think some matter but not as much as they're portrayed. On special teams certainly winning a faceoff can mean the difference between a successful PK/PP, but a NZ 5v5 FO isn't real important IMO.

Was curious to see where HF stood on the debate.

This is like asking is having possession of the puck important. It sure is.

 

[Yepthatsme]

I think a problem a lot of people have with assessing the importance of face offs is they just use the aggregate value (team percentage, player percentage over a course of a season) over the situational value. Most goals your team scores in a year within ~10-15 seconds of a stoppage can probably be attributed to a key face off win and usually a set play off the win. I’d argue that number bounces up to ~30 seconds on a power play, where a defensive win usually means an easy clear to start and then the offensive team trying to get set up in the zone. After an icing call is an extremely important faceoff situation as well, where it’s the difference between getting tired players hemmed in or a quick change. Final minute of any period it will probably lead to your team controlling the remaining chances for the rest of the period, and in the final frame it can be the difference in you getting your goalie out for an extra attacker for an extra 30 seconds to a minute.

It’s why in post-game pressers you’ll hear the coach and players mentioning “key draw wins”. The average neutral zone faceoff doesn’t have too much impact on a game, and even the average offensive/defensive draw probably only adds slight value. I believe faceoff stats need a more in depth approach as we have taken with shots. We now separate shots into low danger, medium danger, and high danger; info that is made publically accessible to all. If we could separate faceoff stats into low danger (neutral zone), medium danger (offensive/defensive zone) and high danger (special teams, post-icing, empty net etc.), it would go a long way to showing what centers are adding value to their teams. I’d be willing to bet a lot of centers numbers either sky-rocket or falter on the more important draws.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Winning 50/50 puck battles matters, right? If I told you a particular player was going to engage in 8 of them tonight, wouldn’t you consider it an important part of that player’s game to at least hold his opponent even?

Well, a faceoff is a 50/50 puck battle. If you’re out there getting slaughtered on them, you better believe it’s going to show up on the scoreboard eventually.

 

[ijuka]

I think a problem a lot of people have with assessing the importance of face offs is they just use the aggregate value (team percentage, player percentage over a course of a season) over the situational value. Most goals your team scores in a year within ~10-15 seconds of a stoppage can probably be attributed to a key face off win and usually a set play off the win. I’d argue that number bounces up to ~30 seconds on a power play, where a defensive win usually means an easy clear to start and then the offensive team trying to get set up in the zone. After an icing call is an extremely important faceoff situation as well, where it’s the difference between getting tired players hemmed in or a quick change. Final minute of any period it will probably lead to your team controlling the remaining chances for the rest of the period, and in the final frame it can be the difference in you getting your goalie out for an extra attacker for an extra 30 seconds to a minute.

It’s why in post-game pressers you’ll hear the coach and players mentioning “key draw wins”. The average neutral zone faceoff doesn’t have too much impact on a game, and even the average offensive/defensive draw probably only adds slight value. I believe faceoff stats need a more in depth approach as we have taken with shots. We now separate shots into low danger, medium danger, and high danger; info that is made publically accessible to all. If we could separate faceoff stats into low danger (neutral zone), medium danger (offensive/defensive zone) and high danger (special teams, post-icing, empty net etc.), it would go a long way to showing what centers are adding value to their teams. I’d be willing to bet a lot of centers numbers either sky-rocket or falter on the more important draws.

Are you suggesting that some centers win more of the "important" draws and less of the "unimportant" draws consistently?

Generally, I'd assume the ratios to stay about the same, so thinking about this doesn't have that much value. If you got 3 draws in a game and 45% to win each, then you still have a 9% chance to win all 3. That doesn't necessarily mean that your center did anything particularly amazing, they just got the 45% three times in a row.


Of course, we could similarly say that a goal scored at 3-3 is more valuable than a goal scored at 6-0. Yet they're all tracked the same. But we assume that players tend to on average score similar amounts of important and unimportant goals.

 

[wetcoast]

Faceoffs do matter. However, if it was such a crucial part of the game there should be some correlation between team success and faceoff percentages.

The reigning cup champs were one of the absolute worst faceoff teams and went 16-4.

But this doesn't really say anything about face-offs mattering as other things matter as well like having players like Makar, Mack ect on the team.

Are you suggesting that some centers win more of the "important" draws and less of the "unimportant" draws consistently?

Generally, I'd assume the ratios to stay about the same, so thinking about this doesn't have that much value. If you got 3 draws in a game and 45% to win each, then you still have a 9% chance to win all 3. That doesn't necessarily mean that your center did anything particularly amazing, they just got the 45% three times in a row.


Of course, we could similarly say that a goal scored at 3-3 is more valuable than a goal scored at 6-0. Yet they're all tracked the same. But we assume that players tend to on average score similar amounts of important and unimportant goals.

This does happen sometime though as I recall an interview with Manny Maholtra who was an elite FO guy and he would save his best tricks for key situations, ie defensive zone face-offs in his case and neutral zone ones weren't as important.

 

[Yepthatsme]

Are you suggesting that some centers win more of the "important" draws and less of the "unimportant" draws consistently?

Generally, I'd assume the ratios to stay about the same, so thinking about this doesn't have that much value. If you got 3 draws in a game and 45% to win each, then you still have a 9% chance to win all 3. That doesn't necessarily mean that your center did anything particularly amazing, they just got the 45% three times in a row.


Of course, we could similarly say that a goal scored at 3-3 is more valuable than a goal scored at 6-0. Yet they're all tracked the same. But we assume that players tend to on average score similar amounts of important and unimportant goals.

I’m 100% suggesting that whether it’s consciously or sub-consciously. The previous poster already stated an example of conscious efforts a player makes, but you don’t think after an icing call with bagged line mates a centre goes in telling himself he needs to win that draw? Even sub-consciously, ideas like a player being clutch or not, or “shows up in big moments” are always discussed. There’s 20 seconds left in a game you’re down 1 with your net pulled, a draw loss probably means you lose the game in that situation. I would definitely wager in that situation that a lot of players percentages sway a lot one way or another.

This site tends to assign a lot of robotic qualities to players, like never taking into account of a player is at the start of a shift or at the end, or the affects high pressure situation on players. I assure you they feel it just as much as we do playing.

 

[AvroArrow]

Puck possession matters. Winning a faceoff = puck possession.

 

[Ducks in a row]

There are goals scored right away from a faceoff win so yes they do matter its just a question of how much do they matter outside of a goal being scored right away from a faceoff win?

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

whoever says no doesn't play hockey

 

[dirtydanglez]

can anyone provide any statistically evidence that they matter. any at all?

 

[BostonBruins11]

Bruins OT goal vs Pens is a perfect example of why faceoffs do matter.