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Challenging Conventional Wisdom Part I: The Importance of Winning Faceoffs |
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What constitutes a radical idea? In hockey, it is a stance that challenges conventional wisdom. With the preseason still three weeks away, I’ve decided to spend some time musing on precepts I’ve heard questioned, and contemplate how they relate to the Lightning this coming season.
One of the smartest voices in hockey is Mike Johnson. He works for TSN, and appears on NHL Network as well. Whether he is behind the glass or at the studio desk, his insights are consistently thoughtful and perspicacious. One time during a game when he was doing color analysis, he weighed in on the hockey world’s obsession with faceoffs, calling them overrated. I had a moment of shock. Johnson played over 650 games in the league, and as a right wing, he was involved in thousands of faceoffs during his professional career. To start playing, a faceoff has to be conducted. Wouldn’t that make its importance unimpeachable? The noise in my ears was deafening. My hands began to clam up. Flecks of black danced across my eyelids. Was he right?
The Carolina Hurricanes led the NHL in faceoff win percentage last year, and they were not close to sniffing the playoffs. But in that same top five were Nashville and Winnipeg, two teams who had very successful seasons. In the bottom five of the league were dregs like Montreal and Arizona, but also the New Jersey, Colorado, and yes, Tampa Bay at 48.2 percent.
On the Lightning, Steven Stamkos finished the regular season with a sterling 52.2 percent at the faceoff dot. But Brayden Point was poor at 47.4 and Yanni Gourde was even worse at 43.4. The Stamkos number feels the most relevant because he is scooping it back to Nikita Kucherov, one of the NHL’s best this century at snapping a shot past the goaltender from an acute angle on the fringes of the faceoff circle.
But faceoffs are a team stat, and most draws are not won cleanly. Therefore, when Tyler Johnson finishes with a better faceoff win percentage than Point, and they are often paired together, implicitly it suggests that Johnson’s wingers, Point and winger X, do a better job contesting for the 50-50 pucks than Johnson does for Point. Johnson’s faceoff win percentage was three percent higher than Point’s during the regular season, but ballooned to 8.5 during the postseason.
Having an excellent faceoff win percentage does not ensure success in the playoffs. Last postseason, the Capitals and Golden Knights finished below 50 percent. The Penguins and Predators finished at 50.4 and 50.5 respectively in 2016-17. In 2015-16, the Sharks, winners of the Western Conference, had the worst faceoff percentage of any team in the postseason. Having a good win percentage in the faceoff dot surely is not a bad thing, but ultimately it does not torpedo a team’s chances from advancing deep or even winning it all.
Winning faceoffs does not seem a crucial signifier of an individual’s worth either. The league’s glitziest superstar centers are a mixed bag. Connor McDavid was a 41.4 percent in 2017-18. Nathan MacKinnon also finished under 42 percent. Evgeni Malkin fared slightly better, but not by much, at 43.7 percent. Inversely, Sidney Crosby was at 53 percent, Anze Kopitar topped out at 54.1 percent, and John Tavares was at 52.9. McDavid and MacKinnon are still young, and when centers become veterans, they tend to improve. Unquestionably, at the end of a close game, having a superstar to win the faceoff is valuable.
Ultimately, a faceoff is an event. A sequence is triggered as soon as the puck is dropped. It is an opportunity to control possession and exit the zone, or cue up your sharpshooting winger by providing him with a sliver of room. It is also a platform for a coach to draw up plays and get creative.
When teams lose more than half of their draws, they dramatically reduce their ability to run sets for their best playmakers. Considering set plays are run with efficacy in the defensive zone, neutral zone, and offensive zone, it is dispiriting to think about the loss of possibilities for a team that loses more faceoffs than it wins. This might be the biggest argument in favor of keeping Kucherov and Stamkos tied at the hip.
When a faceoff is lost, it makes a team more predictable in its attack. Aside from certain defensive-zone set plays, whose sole purpose is a clean breakout, most set plays exploit the opponent’s stationary position and try to seize on a matchup it finds advantageous. It could be an undersized winger whose focus wanes outsides the offensive zone, and they are expected to seal off the space between the far-side defenseman and the net. It could be a listless opposing forward or defenseman who do not challenge and trail the off-the-puck winger once a draw is lost. It could be an opposing defenseman who is poor at boxing out around the net and won’t confront the net-front presence who is being primed for a tip-shot.
In the offensive zone, there are options built into the set play for the creator. Maybe he shoots from the off-slot into the screen—or he can hit the cutting weak-side defenseman. If the strong-side defenseman receives the puck, he can slide down the boards, which could open up space in the high, middle, or low slot as the defense contorts in an effort to contain the renegade defenseman. Teams are so disciplined in their own-zone defensive coverage that they can seem impenetrable, and the puck can be swallowed in a sea of shot blocks and deflected passes. The beauty of a won faceoff is that the creator has agency to rattle his enemy’s posture.
Hockey is complicated, and faceoffs underscore the lack of easy answers. A won draw can be helpful, but it is not essential. Still, it can be the gateway to two coveted assets: solitude and creativity. Ultimately, possession of the puck is power. Claiming possession after the draw is won achieves that end. But it is only the beginning.
Tampa Bay Lightning Blogger • 
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