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How important are faceoffs?

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I frequently hear commentators saying how important faceoffs are. I also read in the forums here how important they are. It makes sense, after all, if you start with the puck it gives you a huge advantage right? I'm not so sure, lets look at the 4 best teams in the league:

 

COL: Their top face off man is Nazim Kadri at number 25, with a percentage below 50%.

 

CAR: Their top guy is Jordan Staal at number 14

 

FLA: Barkov is their top guy at number 15.

 

TB: They are consistently the best team over the last 3 years, but they don't even have anybody in the top 25.

 

One might conclude from this that winning the faceoff is overrated, and has no ultimate bearing on the outcome of the game. 

 

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Being able to win in your own zone is key. Winning on the PK and the PP are huge factors not sure if there are stats for this or where to find em but if there were I'd love to see whos tops in the league at D zone FO's. 

https://www.hockey-reference.com/players/h/horvabo01.html

 

Found this looks like Bo is 47.4% on the PK and 64.5% on the PP. 

 

Edited by hammertime
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IMHO, face off wins are important in the context of timing and circumstances.  I don't think this needs any explanation.

 

EDIT:

 

@Taphouse Canuck - this is an interesting topic to discuss. I hope I didn't come across as diminishing my interest in the OP you posted. 

 

To draw an analogy, I think face offs are similar to big saves goalies make...I grew up in the Ken Dryden, Billy Smith, Grant Fuhr era. 

 

The Habs, while Dryden was their tender, were notoriously slow starters in the first period, but Dryden always made the early game saves, which allowed the Habs blow away their opponents as they got their game going at about the 10 minute mark of the first period.

 

Battlin' Billy and Grant Fuhr never had the highest save percentage and the lowest GAA, but when their teams needed the big save, they provided it.  Grant Fuhr, so much so, that Gretzky is on record to say that if he had to choose one goalie to play in a winner take all game, it would be Fuhr in between the pipes.

 

Faceoffs are a lot like this...one of the Canucks weaknesses this season is the terrible win pct. while on the PK (I don't know the number, but the eye test infers they've been horrible).  I'm going to guess if they won even 10% more PK draws, they wouldn't be PK bottom feeders.

Edited by bigbadcanucks
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I did a statistical look a few years ago and found that they were not statistically significant enough to be correlated with wins. That said, I think there might be still some weak correlation.

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1 hour ago, Taphouse Canuck said:

One might conclude from this that winning the faceoff is overrated, and has no ultimate bearing on the outcome of the game.

On the other hand one could argue that faceoffs can indeed alter the outcome of a game:

 

 

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Puck possession can indirectly lead to goals if the subsequent plays are effective in putting the puck in the net.
It's also useful to get the puck back to your own guys in a crucial PK or end-game situation.  
In and of itself, the stat isn't very telling, since some teams thrive off of generating chances off a strong forecheck or counterattack, neither of which necessarily start after a FO win.  It's icing on the cake to have the puck and then score off the rush, but again it's what you do with the puck when you get it, not how you get the puck.

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I think situational faceoffs under pressure are more important and would be a better stat than just your overall faceoff %. For example, a neutral zone faceoff in a 8-1 game is nowhere near as important as a defensive zone faceoff on the PK defending a 1 goal game in the final minute of play.

 

Regardless that's where having Bo is quite useful, he's great at retaining possession for us on the PK or PP. Our powerplay sucks so much at zone entries so starting with possession most of the time is so important for this team, whereas other great teams don't have to rely on it too much because they just dominate in open-ice play.

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8 hours ago, Taphouse Canuck said:

I frequently hear commentators saying how important faceoffs are. I also read in the forums here how important they are. It makes sense, after all, if you start with the puck it gives you a huge advantage right? I'm not so sure, lets look at the 4 best teams in the league:

 

COL: Their top face off man is Nazim Kadri at number 25, with a percentage below 50%.

 

CAR: Their top guy is Jordan Staal at number 14

 

FLA: Barkov is their top guy at number 15.

 

TB: They are consistently the best team over the last 3 years, but they don't even have anybody in the top 25.

 

One might conclude from this that winning the faceoff is overrated, and has no ultimate bearing on the outcome of the game. 

 

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It makes a big difference. The 2011 team had great faceoff guys like Kesler, a not too shabby Henrik Sedin and an absolutely dominant Manny Malhotra. When Manny was healthy, he would not only be in the top PK but Vigneault would deploy him STRICTLY just for faceoffs in the 2nd unit PP. Like he'd take the draw and change, hence he was a big part of that team which was top 3 PP and PK. When you win draws, especially with a great centre who wins a lot, your special teams benefit because they have the puck. Thats 10 seconds of puck possession  to score, or to kill a penalty

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9 hours ago, 73 Percent said:

If you're losing the game and in the dot then they're important. 

 

If you're winning the game but losing in the dot they're not important.

 

So to answer your question of "how important are faceoffs". Yes.

would be interesting to see the stats on fo win% when behind or tied.

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It's just one of the elements that factors into a good team. There is zero doubt that if you start the play with possession that you have an advantage. You know what else gives an advantage? Great goaltending. Skilled forwards. Physicality. Morale. Defensive structure.

 

And for the teams that are mentioned as the top teams, they have all or most of these. And if their faceoffs were improved, they'd be even better.

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