GDT: Devils @ Flames - 10:00 PM - MSG

[MadDevil]

The question to me is where is Jack best suited to playing after the faceoff (where the vast majority of the game is played), and to me it's clearly at center. Switching him to wing just because he's bad at faceoffs seems pretty dumb. I understand having somebody else out there that can win a faceoff and then move to wing to let Jack play center, but that player also has to be able to play with him or you're not maximizing his usage.

 

[Whaddagoal]

How many goals this year have come off a faceoff in our games? I don't know the number but let's be generous and say like 15. We've had 699 faceoffs. That'd be 2%. So yeah not meaningless but not all that important at all and people vastly over-exaggerate the importance. IIRC the research that was done showed that even guys who are on the extremes for FO% only see their possession numbers shift like +/- 2%

Yeah low probably. But i guess its not easy to measure the impact of faceoff win except in those direct scenarios that others mentioned earlier.

It is hard to measure its full value, but that doesnt make it meaningless.

Not saying i overvalue them either, just putting in my 2 cents that they do hold value -- we just cant easily put it in a measure that represents its true effectiveness.

 

[Triumph]

Everything starts from a faceoff and will define where possession begins in a sequence of events.

It just doesn't happen this way, though. Many faceoffs quickly result in a change of possession. Watch what happens on 'offensive' faceoff wins on the other side of the redline after e.g. an offside call. If the puck goes back to a defenseman, he'll just send the puck for a dump-in, one which has a low percentage of retrieval.

Just look at the game winning goal bratt scored vs. Edmonton. Faceoff win defined our sequence to marino and to bratt who scored 7 seconds after winning said faceoff.

The reason this worked is in part because Edmonton expected the Devils to just give the puck away off the faceoff win, as that is what teams do very frequently off opening faceoffs.

Same for the faceoff goal wood scored in same game just earlier that the camera didnt even pan fast enough. Wood got posession and goal was generated quickly. Thats 2 from one single game even

Every season is bound to have this sort of play, Anaheim won a faceoff like this against us. I imagine goals scored directly off faceoffs are weakly correlated with faceoff winning percentage.

Same for any PK or PP momentum shift start. I didnt read all the way back to how this convo started but faceoffs definifely not meaningless.

These are the faceoffs that matter. The trouble is, you can't really win more than 65% of PP faceoffs and 60% of PK faceoffs. So when people say 'faceoffs don't matter' or 'faceoffs barely matter' it is acknowledging that the ranges between success and failure are small and that having possession in hockey (at even strength) is not a big deal at all. You'd rather have it than not, but a large percentage of the time you won't have it, and there's not a lot you can do about it. That said, Hughes's faceoff inability probably costs the Devils a few goals a year - if he could just bring himself up to 40%, he'd be fine, not ideal, but fine.

 

[TrufleShufle]

How many goals this year have come off a faceoff in our games? I don't know the number but let's be generous and say like 15. We've had 699 faceoffs. That'd be 2%. So yeah not meaningless but not all that important at all and people vastly over-exaggerate the importance. IIRC the research that was done showed that even guys who are on the extremes for FO% only see their possession numbers shift like +/- 2%

No, literally nobody does, hence why these debates always land right here. If you don't think they are almost meaningless, you think they are way too important.

They matter. They matter for special teams, they matter in the D-zone, they matter to the point all ten players before the puck drops would much rather win and have possession than be trying to get it back for the next 10-30 seconds. Is it the most important thing? Nope. Can a team win the cup with shitty faceoffs? Yup. But they also can with subpar goaltending, lower shots and no insanely good D-man. But it's a lot easier to win the more boxes you check off.

It's ok to want to win more faceoffs, how that upsets some people is beyond me.

 

[Whaddagoal]

It just doesn't happen this way, though. Many faceoffs quickly result in a change of possession. Watch what happens on 'offensive' faceoff wins on the other side of the redline after e.g. an offside call. If the puck goes back to a defenseman, he'll just send the puck for a dump-in, one which has a low percentage of retrieval.



The reason this worked is in part because Edmonton expected the Devils to just give the puck away off the faceoff win, as that is what teams do very frequently off opening faceoffs.



Every season is bound to have this sort of play, Anaheim won a faceoff like this against us. I imagine goals scored directly off faceoffs are weakly correlated with faceoff winning percentage.



These are the faceoffs that matter. The trouble is, you can't really win more than 65% of PP faceoffs and 60% of PK faceoffs. So when people say 'faceoffs don't matter' or 'faceoffs barely matter' it is acknowledging that the ranges between success and failure are small and that having possession in hockey (at even strength) is not a big deal at all. You'd rather have it than not, but a large percentage of the time you won't have it, and there's not a lot you can do about it. That said, Hughes's faceoff inability probably costs the Devils a few goals a year - if he could just bring himself up to 40%, he'd be fine, not ideal, but fine.

I dont disagree here on most of this. You articulated a lot of these points in a better way than i did.

I just wanted to empahsize they matter more significantly that some are saying here, but we cant measure the end result of them easily, except in those concrete scenarios of PP and PK zone stuff.

As TrufleShufle pointed out above, it changes entire players shift from offense or defense.

Spending 30 seconds forehecking/backchecking getting tired and the the remaining 12 seconds on a rush offensive have very different outcomes than spending 42 seconds of full posession in the cycle or 37 seconds of all offensive and 6 seconds of backchecking.

Winning or losing a faceoff affects the potential shift flow significantly and affect game momentum tilts.

 

[My3Sons]

I dont disagree here on most of this. You articulated a lot of these points in a better way than i did.

I just wanted to empahsize they matter more significantly that some are saying here, but we cant measure the end result of them easily, except in those concrete scenarios of PP and PK zone stuff.

As TrufleShufle pointed out above, it changes entire players shift from offense or defense.

Spending 30 seconds forehecking/backchecking getting tired and the the remaining 12 seconds on a rush offensive have very different outcomes than spending 42 seconds of full posession in the cycle or 37 seconds of all offensive and 6 seconds of backchecking.

Winning or losing a faceoff affects the potential shift flow significantly and affect game momentum tilts.

It sounds like the problem is in the outcome evaluation. All we get are faceoff wins and losses. I have yet to see anything more nuanced. Are they won clean or scrapped for? Are they controlled where something can be done or just momentarily without any open space? They need to start tracking something like that. Then we could see who can win enough clean faceoffs in the offensive zone to lead to some extra goals . Of course the faceoff that ends up along the boards in a scrum is almost irrelevant to the outcome of the game but that clean win in the key spot matters a lot. Unless I’m missing something everything is treated the same which is just oversimplified.

 

[Xirik]

Ah yes, the "are faceoffs meaningless" argument and the "I believed in this team harder then you" argument.

This better stop or I'll get Rangerdoggo to return.

 

[MachoDiablo]

It's dawning on me after reading people saying "Wow, Huberdeau was pretty invisible in that game, wasn't he?" that I spent last night watching the game and completely forgetting the Flames had traded for Huberdeau. So, yeah, pretty invisible.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

It's dawning on me after reading people saying "Wow, Huberdeau was pretty invisible in that game, wasn't he?" that I spent last night watching the game and completely forgetting the Flames had traded for Huberdeau. So, yeah, pretty invisible.

the only time I noticed him was when he elbowed Siegs and then (I think) they both got penalties

 

[Triumph]

Spending 30 seconds forehecking/backchecking getting tired and the the remaining 12 seconds on a rush offensive have very different outcomes than spending 42 seconds of full posession in the cycle or 37 seconds of all offensive and 6 seconds of backchecking.

I'm very serious that I want you to watch a game with this thought in mind, because this is just not how hockey works the vast majority of the time. Teams at even strength don't win offensive zone draws and spend the whole shift in the offensive zone very often at all. It's exceptionally rare. Even the scenario where you say that maybe the puck gets thrown out near the end - this just does not happen often. There's too many changes of possession and it's too easy to get the puck out of the zone.

Winning or losing a faceoff affects the potential shift flow significantly and affect game momentum tilts.

I don't believe this either, not at even strength.

 

[MadDevil]

The funny thing about this faceoff argument is Nico, Haula, and McLeod are all 60% or better on faceoffs at the moment. We have guys who can win faceoffs. We don't need Jack to take all the important faceoffs.

 

[Oneiro]

Face Off is still a good movie.

 

[devilsblood]

It just doesn't happen this way, though. Many faceoffs quickly result in a change of possession. Watch what happens on 'offensive' faceoff wins on the other side of the redline after e.g. an offside call. If the puck goes back to a defenseman, he'll just send the puck for a dump-in, one which has a low percentage of retrieval.



The reason this worked is in part because Edmonton expected the Devils to just give the puck away off the faceoff win, as that is what teams do very frequently off opening faceoffs.



Every season is bound to have this sort of play, Anaheim won a faceoff like this against us. I imagine goals scored directly off faceoffs are weakly correlated with faceoff winning percentage.



These are the faceoffs that matter. The trouble is, you can't really win more than 65% of PP faceoffs and 60% of PK faceoffs. So when people say 'faceoffs don't matter' or 'faceoffs barely matter' it is acknowledging that the ranges between success and failure are small and that having possession in hockey (at even strength) is not a big deal at all. You'd rather have it than not, but a large percentage of the time you won't have it, and there's not a lot you can do about it. That said, Hughes's faceoff inability probably costs the Devils a few goals a year - if he could just bring himself up to 40%, he'd be fine, not ideal, but fine.

What % of offensive zone faceoffs take place just inside the red line? Certainly not enough to support your "many faceoffs" point.

 

[devilsblood]

The funny thing about this faceoff argument is Nico, Haula, and McLeod are all 60% or better on faceoffs at the moment. We have guys who can win faceoffs. We don't need Jack to take all the important faceoffs.

Ya, I talked about this earlier. Because of the personnel on the team Ruff is able to work around this weakness in Jacks game.

Jack is our TOI leader amongst fwds, yet is 4th on the team in faceoffs. The 3 other guys all have nearly 2x's as many faceoffs. Nico has 3x's as many. Mercer, almost has as many faceoff attempts as Hughes.

And Ruff is certainly keeping Hughes away from the better faceoff guys, so his meager faceoff % is inflated a bit.

 

[Bleedred]

That’s a good point about losing possession even after a face off win.

I noticed that last night on the 5 on 3. We won the face off but basically had no possession of it.

That’s probably a bad example, as it’s down 2 men, but that was an example that came right to mind from last night.

The face off win there didn’t do anything to help us. We killed the penalty, yes, but in no part due to winning that faceoff.

 

[Triumph]

What % of offensive zone faceoffs take place just inside the red line? Certainly not enough to support your "many faceoffs" point.

The reason why that is in quotes is because while they do not take place in the offensive zone, one team is farther away from their net than another. These faceoffs are rarer than offensive zone or d zone faceoffs but happen quite frequently in a game nonetheless - but it'd make sense to not register them at all, because they're almost the least important part of a game.

 

[devilsblood]

The reason why that is in quotes is because while they do not take place in the offensive zone, one team is farther away from their net than another. These faceoffs are rarer than offensive zone or d zone faceoffs but happen quite frequently in a game nonetheless - but it'd make sense to not register them at all, because they're almost the least important part of a game.

They are pretty rare, but I agree it's more akin to a neutral zone faceoff in terms of impact. But again rare.

 

[Triumph]

They are pretty rare, but I agree it's more akin to a neutral zone faceoff in terms of impact. But again rare.

It is a neutral zone faceoff. I am describing what happens after an offside call. You almost never see any sort of offense generated in either direction off of this sort of faceoff - the 'offensive' team dumps it in, the 'defensive' team, I'm not even sure what they do, maybe they also just try to gain the red line and dump it in.

Faceoffs are so bad.

 

[JK3]

You guys are so f***ing tiresome, great win though.