NO! I don't get how this isn't obvious, but that is not a fact. It is your opinion.
A fact is, losing ONE draw does not matter over the course of a season. The idea that if your team didn't win a single draw all season it wouldn't matter is what you people are saying with your ridiculous "fact."
- Tonybere

Ok, rereading I see that you did say faceoff %, not winning faceoffs. And I agree that faceoff % is a very limited stat. But the larger argument here is where people are saying that winning faceoffs has no bearing on the outcome of the game. THAT is an opinion, not a fact. And one that I find to be insane.

NO! I don't get how this isn't obvious, but that is not a fact. It is your opinion.
A fact is, losing ONE draw does not matter over the course of a season. The idea that if your team didn't win a single draw all season it wouldn't matter is what you people are saying with your ridiculous "fact."
- Tonybere

There is no reasoning with arguments like this.

Ok, rereading I see that you did say faceoff %, not winning faceoffs. And I agree that faceoff % is a very limited stat. But the larger argument here is where people are saying that winning faceoffs has no bearing on the outcome of the game. THAT is an opinion, not a fact. And one that I find to be insane.
- Tonybere

No offense, but you are making this the larger argument. The simple argument is that employing someone like Vermette, who is terrible in a lot of areas, solely for face offs, is a bad justification of a roster spot. That particular "skill" is not important to a good team

Dayum, Symphony of Destruction..... maybe you aren't a complete putz afterall.

Let's look at two players. One is very good at FO's, one is not

Antoine Vermette - 76 GP - 1357 total FO's - 55.8%
Nicklas Backstrom - 75 GP - 1351 total FO's - 48.6%

On average, face off's per game

Backstrom - 18.01
Vermette - 17.8

Faceoff wins per game

Backstrom - 8.79
Vermette - 9.9


That's about 1 faceoff win per game difference. What are the odds that particular win makes up the difference that a better player could bring?

NO! I don't get how this isn't obvious, but that is not a fact. It is your opinion.
A fact is, losing ONE draw does not matter over the course of a season. The idea that if your team didn't win a single draw all season it wouldn't matter is what you people are saying with your ridiculous "fact."
- Tonybere

No one is saying that if you lost every draw (a ridiculous non-real world example) that it wouldn't matter.

we are saying a few separate things:

1) it would matter way less than you think because faceoffs do not correlate with winning. This means that teams who have the best faceoff% often miss the playoffs and teams have won the cup being the worst faceoff team in the league.

This isn't debatable. And because it isn't, neither is the following:

2) Employing a faceoff specialist hurts your team if that player wouldn't also be on your team if he was terrible at faceoffs. Also, faceoffs matter so little that you should put your best defensive players out for an important dzone draw, even if your best faceoff guy doesn't make that list.

3) At least part of this is because at the pro level there is not a huge range of talents at taking faceoffs. It is impossible in a real world situation for a team to win a wide enough margin of draws for it to make a significant impact.

So sure, if you lost 90% of your draws that would likely effect the game, but in the NHL that literally can never happen. Since the difference in odds of winning the draw between your best and worst player is minimal, you shouldn't factor faceoff skills into your considerations if you were a coach deploying players in a close game - because it barely matters.

4) Given what we know, when evaluating players it doesn't really matter if a player is good at draws or not. Tyler Bozak isn't going to be a top 3 centre on a President's Trophy winning team, even if he's the best faceoff guy in the world.

Ok, rereading I see that you did say faceoff %, not winning faceoffs. And I agree that faceoff % is a very limited stat. But the larger argument here is where people are saying that winning faceoffs has no bearing on the outcome of the game. THAT is an opinion, not a fact. And one that I find to be insane.
- Tonybere

How is that an opinion? Faceoffs literally, factually, objectively have almost no correlation with winning. What other conclusion can you draw from such a fact?

What would the argument that given almost zero correlation to winning, faceoffs matter anyways even look like?

Not really though. Arizona led the league in FO%, by your logic, wouldn't they have possession more than any other team as well?
- sbroads24

By my logic they had the best odds of having the puck to start the play ...however they managed to (frank) that up is their issue ...the "fact" is they had puck more than they didn't to start the play...more than any other team and "logic" tells anyone with half a (frank)ing brain they would have the best odds to drive possession

By my logic they had the best odds of having the puck to start the play ...however they managed to (frank) that up is their issue ...the "fact" is they had puck more than they didn't to start the play...more than any other team and "logic" tells anyone with half a (frank)ing brain they would have the best odds to drive possession
- Redmile247

Think about it this way instead...

If your team has a guy like Bergeron or Toews... then you have a great faceoff guy who is also awesome defensively... it makes sense to send that guy out for critical draws.

For the Flames though as an example... let's pretend that Stajan was still an elite faceoff guy compared to Backlund who is only average...

By the stats, it makes more sense to send out the Backlund line rather than the Stajan line, because even if Backs doesn't win the draw, he's much more likely to retrieve possession and move the puck up ice than Stajan is...

Choosing your deployment based on the first 1-2 seconds of a 45 second shift is silly... you need to look at the overall picture instead.

Likewise, in roster creation you're just extrapolating the same thought process... if Bergeron and Kopitar were only 40 percent faceoff guys, you'd still want them on the ice as much as possible and you'd definitely still build your team around them because for 43 out of 45 seconds in every shift they would still dominate their opposition, and 4 out of 10 shifts they'd still start with possession anyway.