FACEOFF SUCCESS IN EACH ZONE
The Capitals always have righties take power play faceoffs on the right side, and lefties on the left, whether that be wingers or centers. The strategy has two advantages. First of all, taking a faceoff on one’s strong side means an ability to swat the puck back easily on one’s backhand with the ref to the inside of the stick. Second, in the Capitals’ case, the right-handed right-wingers on the two power play units are also the slot players, so by starting them in the faceoff circle, it takes less time following the faceoff for the team to get into formation.
SIGNIFICANCE OF WINNING OR LOSING FACEOFF IN EACH ZONE
(2005)
The metric we will use for evaluating the significance of winning or losing the face-off is ‘goals allowed per face-off’.
But how does the probability of being scored on change over time after a faceoff?
In The NZ:
Initially, there is a disadvantage to losing face-offs in the NZ, but after approximately 25 seconds, the rate of goal scoring seems to be independent of the outcome of the draw, converging to the NHL aggregate of 0.07 goals allowed per 100 face-offs per second.
In The DZ:
In the first seven seconds after a face-off in the DZ, you are 10 times more likely to be scored on if you lost the draw than if you won it.
In fact, more than 10% of all the goals in the NHL during the 2003-04 season were allowed within 20 seconds of a team losing a face-off in its own defensive zone. Overall, that means that one out of every 40 lost face-offs resulted in a goal in the next 20 seconds.
In The OZ:
Winning or losing a face-off in the offensive zone has little effect on how likely you are to get scored on.
Discussion:
The most significant result of this analysis is that teams should use their best face-off men on face-offs deep in their own end to decrease the likelihood of being scored on. Similarly, they should also use their best face-offs takers in the offensive zone.
If a team improves its face-off winning percentage in these situations from 50% to 60% (say, by signing Yanic Perreault, assuming all other things are equal), it can expect, on average, to improve its goal differential by 25 goals over the course of the season.
REDEFINING FACEOFF SUCCESS USING SHOT DATA
(Jan 2015)
Face-offs are one of the most frequent and most visible components of a hockey game. But thus far our ability to statistically measure their impact on games, both for individual players and as a whole, has been limited mainly to the face-off percentage (face-off wins divided by face-offs).
The simplicity of this statistic has the unfortunate side effect of treating all face-off wins and all face-offs as equivalent, along with being totally divorced from shooting and scoring events that actually win and lose games.
If some face-off takers have a knack for generating more pinpoint passes and less puck battles, that is an advantage they provide their teams that goes unnoticed by only looking at the face-off percentage. Using game event data from after the face-off, we can redefine face-off success and produce a new measurement that is more directly tied to goal scoring and goal prevention.
Not all face-offs are equal
Face-off wins in different zones generate very different outcomes. A win in the offensive zone generates many shots and a win in the defensive zone is very significant for preventing shots. And while a win in the neutral zone does produce an advantage, it’s comparatively miniscule.That flurry of shot activity after zone face-offs appears to last about 10 seconds. (If the offensive zone team won, they continue to have a shot flow advantage through 20-25 seconds, but the vast majority of that advantage has diminished by the 10 second mark.) And if the defensive zone team won, shot flow is essentially even with respect to the face-off at 10 seconds; the defensive face-off win has neutralized the defensive zone start.
Capturing face-off win skill
So let’s go with 10 seconds as the window of heavy face-off influence on gameplay. Now we can attempt to capture face-off winning skill for a player by looking at all shots that occurred within 10 seconds of that player’s even-strength zone face-offs. Since neutral zone face-offs don’t generate much of a shot flow advantage, they won’t tell us much, so we’ll look only at offensive and defensive zone face-offs for now.
After accumulating all shots that occur within 10 seconds of a player’s zone face-offs, I’ll turn the net shot totals into rate statistics by dividing by the player’s number of face-offs in that zone
The result is Net Shots Post Face-off (NSPF), the balance of shots on goal and missed shots (“Fenwick” shots) in the 10 seconds following even-strength zone face-offs, per even-strength zone face-off.
For all this shooting, it turns out that goals within 10 seconds of a face-off are not extremely common. Since 2009-10, about one in 120 even-strength zone face-offs results in a goal within 10 seconds, and every game has about 29 even-strength zone face-offs. Do the math and goals after even-strength zone face-offs are a once in four games occurrence – not really enough to make or break a season but frequent enough to make the difference in a few close games.
Post face-off event statistics are a first attempt at using event data to measure face-off skill in a new way, extending beyond the simple face-off. While the impact of even strength face-off performance on team scoring is small, it could be the difference for a team on the edge.
MISCELLANEOUS FACEOFF FACTS
FACEOFF RATIOS AND TEAM SUCCESS
(Aug 2006)
It seems to me that the faceoff ratio probably serves as a decent proxy for the amount of time a team spends in each end of the ice.
Looking at teams ratios of offensive zone to defensive zone faceoffs, there’s something obvious that should jump out at you – 13 of the top 15 teams made the playoffs.
TIMING OF SHOTS AFTER A FACEOFF
(Oct 2006)
On average, a shot (defined as either a goal, save, blocked shot, or missed shot) took place within 5 seconds of the puck drop on an OZ facoff 9.09% of the time last season.
MOST SHOTS AFTER A FACEOFF ARE GARBAGE
(Nov 2006)
Most shots after face-offs are garbage (shooting percentage half of normal).
IMPORTANCE OF FACEOFFS
FACEOFF PERCENTAGE IS NOT INDICATIVE OF SUCCESS
(Nov 2009)
Aside from the top ten, faceoff percentage really does not seem to be indicative of success.
Obviously teams emphasize winning draws as a way of holding onto the puck more. Overall, it appears that the top teams over the past four seasons have done that better than the rest. However, you do not need to be proficient in the faceoff circle to be good.
THE IMPORTANCE OF FACEOFFS
(Nov 2009)
In the 2008-2009 season, 70,417 faceoffs were won in 1,230 games. That’s roughly 57.25 faceoffs per game, nearly one per minute.
The correlation of faceoff percentage and total standings points was 0.51; when compared to other statistics such as goal differential (0.95) and shot differential (0.63), it ends up low on the totem pole of things that correlate with teams winning hockey games.
The biggest factor though may be that faceoff percentages don’t have all that big of a range. The average success rate last season was around 45.7%. Over the course of 100 trips to the dot, that comes out to roughly 8 extra faceoffs lost, or in other words, two in 25 extra faceoffs. Not exactly a damning setback at the end of the day.
Over the course of the season goals and faceoff wins tend to balance out, but in a compressed set of highly intensified games (really trying not to say that word just yet) winning faceoffs can make an impact.
It appears that faceoff wins are similar to QoC, in that in the short term, on a shift or game basis, it can be important. Over the coarse of the year, the effect washes out.
Not all NHL faceoff wins are equal. A win on the power play or a win outside the neutral zone is more value than a win at even strength or a win in the neutral zone.
Raw faceoff data is just as good as adjusted faceoff data in rating players.
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CORSI AND FACEOFFS
The impact of a faceoff is real (as one would expect) but likely over glorified by some.
Estimated an impact of +2.45 goals for every 100 non-neutral zone faceoff wins over 50%, and +3.66 for every 100 for special teams. A real impact, but not overly huge impact. Neutral zone faceoffs carried even less of an impact with +0.90 goals for every 100 faceoffs over 50%.
A team’s faceoff percentage explains about twenty percent of the team’s Corsi percentage.
There are a few reasons why the impact may not be as high as the numbers indicate.
A faceoff battle is simply a set-play puck battle; skaters who perform well in faceoffs can also help their team’s possession by performing well in other puck battle situations. The correlation with puck possession could be picking up both impacts.
A coach may improve the impact of their faceoff percentage on their Corsi percentage by deploying their faceoff specialists predominately in non-neutral zone situations.
THE IMPACT OF WINNING FACEOFFS
The truth is, faceoffs tend to be highly overrated. They matter, but they do not matter on average much more than any other of the many puck battles that occur throughout the game.
When you really break it down, faceoffs are really just a set play puck battle after all. However, some have more values than others.
Losing a faceoff is about equal in importance as how you defend from a faceoff loss. The same is true with winning a faceoff. A player may win faceoffs in the defensive zone, but hurt the team due to inability to break out.
THE IMPORTANCE OF WINNING A FACEOFF
They changed the rule so visiting team has to put the stick down first.
Did it increase scoring?
Winning faceoffs is overstated in the effect that they have overall on games and possession as a whole. So signing a player that is going to make $1.5M this year to be a bad 3rd/4th line center, just because he can win a few faceoffs, is a really stupid way to build a hockey team.
We find that those additional 114 faceoff wins on average lead to just over three goals. That’s it. Over 200 games, that averages out to about a goal every 67 games. If those numbers hold steady, over the course of the season the rule change will have led to an additional 20 goals. Overall, not a whole lot.
Winning a faceoff means nothing if you suck at everything else so bad that the other team still ends up in a position to put the puck in the back of your net at double the rate you're putting it in theirs.
This finding actually aligns with what hockey analysis has found over the years when it comes to faceoffs. Overall, winning them just isn’t as important as it’s made out to be.
When we see a goal scored off a faceoff, it’s easy to attribute a large portion of that goal to that win. But just because the goal couldn’t have happened without the faceoff win, doesn’t mean the faceoff win was the determining factor in the goal going in. Consider that for every faceoff that results in a goal, dozens go by in which nothing comes of them. The importance of faceoffs over the course of a season is a fallacy, and for a league looking to increase scoring, the NHL will likely have to look elsewhere.
HOW MANY EXTRA FACEOFF WINS TO GAIN A GOAL
(March 2012)
An extra 82 faceoff wins gets you a goal differential.
It takes approximately 76 more faceoff wins than losses to gain a goal differential in the NHL
On average, it takes 76.5 extra faceoff wins to gain an extra goal.
Faceoff location is important.
Having a 60% faceoff player take an extra 20% of his draws in the OZ means upwards of an extra win per year.
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