Discussion How important are faceoffs?

[nux_win]

I've always been fascinated by this question.  It seems obvious that starting with the puck would be better than not starting with the puck.  Every casual fan and every expert seem to agree that face-offs are important.  And yet there is one little oft forgotten detail: face off winning percentages don't correlate very strongly, if at all, with winning.  Meaning that they aren't actually all that important.  I don't get it.  I can't explain.  It's just weird.  GCG!

[Provost]

There was a big study a few years ago that didn’t find much correlation between face off success and a team winning.

 

I was quite surprised as it seems counter intuitive.

 

A big part of the reason is that there really isn’t a lot of variation between teams when it comes to faceoff percentages.  A really good faceoff player really only wins slightly more than half of his draws.  If every team is pretty close to 50% wins give of take just a little… then that can’t really explain wins and losses.

 

https://www.si.com/nhl/2017/03/03/illustrated-review-importance-nhl-faceoff

Edited March 12, 2022 by Provost

[Undrafted]

Faceoffs are important, most especially in odd-man situations.  The reason why they don't correlate to wins/losses is because what the faceoff winner's team does with the puck after the draw is more important than that.

 

For example, if a team on a PP wins the draw but promptly gives up possession via poor passing, poor shot selection or what-have-you, then winning the draw doesn't mean anything.  Conversely, if a team on the PK wins the draw but subsequently fails to clear the puck out of the zone (something which drives me absolutely bonkers), winning the draw is also pointless.

 

As for the absence of correlation between wins/losses: most good teams are good at regaining possession of the puck and/or maintaining possession once they get it.  But a really good team that's bad-to-meh on faceoffs would be just that much better if they were.  As the maxim goes, "you can't score if you don't have the puck" and winning faceoffs is the least-labour intensive way of getting the puck.