NCSportsTalk.com - Puck Drops
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Faceoff winning percentage might be one of the most unglamorous stats that the NHL keeps. No one's going to win an award for top faceoff percentage, unless you consider the Selke Trophy a rough approximation since faceoff wins are so crucial in defensive situations. It correlates well to success in making the postseason; six of the top 10 teams, led by San Jose at 55.6%, made the playoffs this year, while only two (23rd-place Buffalo and 29th-place Colorado) from the bottom ten advanced to playing meaningful games in mid-April.
The Canes have long been one of the best faceoff teams in the NHL. Since moving from Hartford in 1997, the Canes finished no lower than 19th, and had an eight-season run from 2000-01 to 2008-09 where they finished first in the league once (2001-02), second twice, in the top ten for seven of the eight seasons and no lower than 12th place.
All that changed this year, when the Hurricanes fell all the way to 25th in the league in faceoff percentage.
Rod Brind'Amour is a longtime ace in the circle, but with his steady downward progression came a similar trend for the Canes on faceoffs. Brind'Amour finished third in the league in faceoff percentage, but he takes many fewer draws these days than he did in his heyday; 849 this year compared to over 2000 (!!) in 2001-02 when the Canes led the league in faceoff percentage.
When Eric Staal took over as captain for Brind'Amour on January 20, the Canes' fortunes in the faceoff circle took a noticeable swan dive. The numbers bear out the sad truth:
| Under B'A: | ||
| Games winning FO: | 19 | |
| Games losing FO: | 25 | |
| W | L | |
| Record when winning FO: | 6 | 13 |
| Record when losing FO: | 7 | 18 |
| When FO equal: | 1 | 3 |
| Under Staal: | ||
| Games winning FO: | 7 | |
| Games losing FO: | 25 | |
| W | L | |
| Record when winning FO: | 6 | 1 |
| Record when losing FO: | 13 | 12 |
| When FO equal: | 1 | 1 |
More stunning is the dropoff after the February 10 trade of Matt Cullen to Ottawa. Cullen was a key faceoff man when Brind'Amour was unable to take a draw for any reason, and while he usually didn't hit Brind'Amour's high-50% range he was usually somewhere around a 50/50 man in the circle. Check out what happened when Cullen hit the road and left the faceoffs largely in the hands of Staal and Brandon Sutter:
| Before Cullen trade: | ||
| Games winning FO: | 23 | |
| Games losing FO: | 32 | |
| W | L | |
| Record when winning FO: | 10 | 13 |
| Record when losing FO: | 11 | 21 |
| When FO equal: | 1 | 4 |
| After Cullen trade: | ||
| Games winning FO: | 3 | |
| Games losing FO: | 18 | |
| W | L | |
| Record when winning FO: | 2 | 1 |
| Record when losing FO: | 9 | 9 |
| When FO equal: | 1 | 0 |
You're reading that correctly: in 22 games after Cullen's trade, the Canes won the majority of faceoffs in three of those games. That's simply horrific, and raises a couple of salient points.
First, how well could the Hurricanes have potentially done in the standings if they had won the faceoff battle in, say, ten of those 22 games? Maybe an extra 3 or 4 wins? For the record, the Canes missed the playoffs by eight points, or...four wins.
Second, what now? Brind'Amour isn't getting any younger and Cullen is unlikely to return. Brandon Sutter is the best faceoff man the Canes have remaining, and despite taking the most draws of anyone on the team Eric Staal finished dead last in the NHL among qualifying players with a paltry 41.8% faceoff percentage. For comparison's sake, the distance between Staal in 84th place and 83rd-place Nik Antropov was 1.6%. From Antropov to 82nd-place Daymond Langkow? 0.1%.
The Canes are lucky to have Brind'Amour, who's on the short list of the five or ten best faceoff men of the last 15 years, and Ron Francis, who is near the top of that list, both on the payroll. Sutter seems to be developing into a capable faceoff man (49% this year, up from 38.6% in '08-09), although he still has a bit of a road ahead of him before he becomes Brind'Amour's heir apparent as the go-to faceoff man. The key, though, is Staal, who will probably take upwards of 1,500 faceoffs next season with Cullen gone and no immediate help on the horizon. Staal has never cracked the 50% barrier on draws in his career, but if the Canes are going to have any success in the circle he needs to step up to the plate and at least get to the point where he's a capable option on faceoffs.
Bottom line? When Brind'Amour retires, whenever that time comes, the Canes' faceoff situation could be ugly and remain that way for a significant length of time, barring player movements. No one else in the system, save maybe Jussi Jokinen (51% in '09-10), shows any signs of becoming a faceoff whiz, and Jokinen's strength is at wing, not center. For a puck possession team like the Canes, they desperately need to control the puck off as many faceoffs as possible, and by spending time hemmed in their own zone after losing a draw they're increasing the pressure on Cam Ward and the defense, certainly not an ideal situation for any team.
Next year, the Canes will likely have to cross their fingers and hope someone answers the bell. If Brind'Amour is still around, he will certainly help in the circle, but if he decides to hang up the skates the Canes could be in for a long season at the faceoff dot.
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