The overrated value of a faceoff
Cam Charron
August 01 2011 09:23AM
Every so often, an analyst will talk about how a certain player deserved a "three star" nominee because he won two or three big faceoffs. Even more so often a coach will send out two centremen in a high-leverage situation to win a key, late draw. The question is whether this tactic has a tangible value.
Let's use the Corsi number here. The Corsi number is, of course, an advanced +/- statistic that counts every goal, saved shot, missed shot and blocked shot while a player was on the ice and is a reliable indicator of which team had possession of the puck when a player was on the ice. Since a won faceoff essentially gives one team possession over the other, logically, faceoff percentage would correlate well to a player's Corsi number.
In the beautiful, scenic spreadsheets offered at Behind The Net there exists data on 1799 players who have played 60-or-more games over the course of a season. I looked at a few, key bits of data from those players to determine faceoff value.
Microsoft Excel kept crashing on me, so I couldn't label the chart. However, the Y-axis indicates a player's Corsi number while the X-axis indicates the team's faceoff percentage while he was on the ice. I've added a trendline, as well:
With an r-squared value of .015, there is little correlative value between winning a faceoff and actually turning the possession into anything tangible.
I ran a similar correlation between where a player started his shift [ Offensive zone starts / Total Offensive and Defensive Starts ] and his Corsi number. Let's see this result:
The r-squared value is .160. It doesn't mean that there's a determination in where you started your shift as to having tangible possession, but it does show us that the location of the puck is more important than who actually has the puck. This is where the dump-and-chase gets away with being a still useful, method of zone-entry. A team concedes possession for puck location and works to get it back in a similar spot.
Oilers blogger Tyler Dellow has looked at the value of a faceoff on the penalty kill recently and I have to add that I've come up with a similar conclusion at even strength. There's a 60-40 split between the top and the bottom regular faceoff men in the league. At 10 draws a game (roughly) that equals two touches of the puck on your defenseman's stick before anything can happen on the play.
I will add, however, that there are some faceoff specialists who double as strong defensive players: Manny Malhotra, Jarrod Smithson, Steve Ott, Paul Gaustad and [I guess] Selke winner Ryan Kesler had strong seasons on both draws and preventing shots. Players like Zenon Konopka and Jarrett Stoll had less generous defensive numbers, and Jonathan Toews, who came second in Selke voting purely by virtue of his faceoff skill was 169th in shot prevention among the 314 forwards who had played more than 600 minutes this past season.
There is NO WAY you can get Toews from the Chicago Blackhawks for Hemsky and a first round pick. Even a top pick.
And Toews is on a Selke path not a Hart one. Eventually, I think you will see Kane and Toews split on two separate lines so each can go towards their respective "trophies." Which is really saying contribute using their individual talents to their fullest.
I'd trade RNH + 2nd for Toews in a heart beat.
I can fully agree with that - its always wise to take a critical approach to such things. It was just that the LMFAO statement sounded a lot like blatant and arrogant resistance to any notion of challenging the 'obvious'. There are many instances where prevailing common knowledge has been successfully challenged by careful analysis.
Now, with that said, at a quick glance, the argument made here does appear to be well put together.
Experienced hockey guys agreeing on something doesn't make it a "non-question." The establishment has been wrong plenty of times before; one reason the game today is different than the one played in 1950 is a series of people realized that "common knowledge" was wrong and exploited widely used but flawed tactics. Lafleur's Canadiens couldn't beat many teams in the alleys, but they won a lot of cups.
Again, no one is saying faceoffs don't matter, but maybe Yanick Perrault was a waste of a roster spot for that last year. Maybe the ducks were right to look past Cogliano's faceoff problems. Maybe when comparing apples to apples you're putting too much value on shininess when you should focus more on taste and texture.
This actually was some ace research, though not by me. I thought Dellow really nailed it.
You clearly identify yourself as the man that points out the obvious. Maybe I am playing presumptuous after you led the way with your enigmatic chasm. Maybe I have the attention span of a gnat, maybe I think this topic is useless. Maybe my opinion doesn't weigh on you because I provided no back-up for my laughter. It appears I don't need to when you so eloquently spell it out for me.
When a team is 3pts back of a playoff spot, a few more faceoffs won on the PP, and who knows. The analysis would have no bearing on an organization in a league that with such intense parity, requires every inch
@stevezie
Nah it's still pointless research.
Only someone looking to justify a spread sheet will compare different player types with different skills to make a point.
Anyways, the comment about coaches wasn't a suggestion that old timey hockey guys are always right, it was pointing out that these guys put an emphasis on the importance of face offs and they are the ones that are currently running the game.
Faceoffs are important because the coaches put an emphasis on it, rightly or wrongly.
i'm sure it has already been said, but some stats must be taken into context. An offensive zone faceoff in the first 5 minutes when the game is 0-0 does not matter as much as an offensive zone start with 30 seconds left when the offensive team is on the powerplay and down 5-4.
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/sports.png