Every so often on Frozen Tools I try to dig into a stat or a category that is a bit more specific and maybe doesn't get as much airtime. I like to dig into some of the non-point related categories too, your hits, your blocks, but in particular find the players who thread the needle of contributing in those, while not putting you at a significant disadvantage in other categories.

For this week I want to embark on a similar mission, but we will be looking at faceoffs.

This week on Frozen Tool Forensics: Faceoff Wins

Some quick thoughts about faceoffs to get us started. For the most part in this article, we are going to reference faceoff wins, and not faceoff percentage (though we have a report for both thanks to the reports page). Faceoffs are generally like shots where individual players have fairly repeatable performances, both over a season and in a given scoring week. This performance is essentially made up of two components, an individual's (plus their supporting cast's) skill at winning a faceoff, and the coaching decisions that put them in position to take those faceoffs in the first place. There can be variation in a player's numbers if they are moved to a new team or have a new coach that uses them differently. Some players, particularly those who historically have had wing eligibility may be asked to play center for chunks of time under one coach or take all of their strong side faceoffs for example, but on a new team won't be asked to do so. This just means some care should be taken whenever a player enters a new situation.

Adding faceoffs wins as a category can be an interesting question. The impact will depend a little on how your league is set up. In a points league it seems to just add another way for centers to get points, and so weighs them even heavier. In addition, it does add value to those wingers who also take faceoffs. I would argue that in a categories league though it actually stratifies centers, making a small group more valuable, but quite a few centers quite a bit less so. 

To get into this, let's talk strategy real quick. For a points league, it doesn't change much. There is another variable that goes into your calculation for points and you draft and play players accordingly. In a categories league, especially where you have limited center spots (rather than six generic forward spots for example), you only have a few spots that can contribute to your weekly (or annually I suppose) faceoff category. For most of the managers in your league that means something like three to four players will be responsible for almost all of the faceoff wins. To get an edge on your competition then you would either need to expand the number of players on your team who take faceoffs (which can very quickly adversely affect your other categories), or really focus on those consistent players who take a ton of them.

So let's start there. For the top group I typically like to look at players who are consistently putting up over 800 faceoff wins in a season. This group is remarkably consistent year over year.

Name	Pos	Age	Team	GP	G	A	PTS/G	PPP	SOG	FOW	FOL	FO	FO%
PATRICE BERGERON	C	37	BOS	73	25	40	0.9	23	293	991	609	1600	61.9
RYAN O’REILLY	C	31	STL	78	21	37	0.7	16	168	900	685	1585	56.8
LEON DRAISAITL	L	26	EDM	80	55	55	1.4	41	278	885	774	1659	53.3
ANZE KOPITAR	C	34	L.A	81	19	48	0.8	22	210	858	651	1509	56.9
ELIAS LINDHOLM	C	27	CGY	82	42	40	1.0	19	235	842	750	1592	52.9
BO HORVAT	C	27	VAN	70	31	21	0.7	19	194	841	634	1475	57
JOHN TAVARES	C	31	TOR	79	27	49	1.0	26	237	813	529	1342	60.6

Basically, if you are able to draft Patrice Bergeron or Ryan O'Reilly you are laughing. In recent years though the true MVP is Leon Draisaitl as not only has he been increasing his faceoff win numbers, but he is a perennial Art Ross contender, and he is left wing eligible (meaning you can still draft other centers and fit them all into your lineup).

Even amongst this elite group the spread is huge. We are talking 178 total faceoff wins between Bergron and John Tavares. Over an average week that means your Bergeron is going to put up about ten more faceoff wins than Tavares. That drop off gets even more dramatic though as we move down the list.

Name	Pos	Age	Team	GP	G	A	PTS/G	PPP	SOG	FOW	FOL	FO	FO%
JONATHAN TOEWS	C	34	CHI	71	13	25	0.5	7	126	787	548	1335	59
TOMAS HERTL	C	28	S.J	82	30	34	0.8	16	205	770	696	1466	52.5
SIDNEY CROSBY	C	35	PIT	69	31	53	1.2	30	208	760	690	1450	52.4
JEAN-GABRIEL PAGEAU	C	29	NYI	77	18	21	0.5	7	126	750	602	1352	55.5
JORDAN STAAL	C	33	CAR	78	17	19	0.5	2	146	737	548	1285	57.4
CLAUDE GIROUX	R	34	OTT	75	21	43	0.9	23	205	733	483	1216	60.3
NICO HISCHIER	C	23	N.J	70	21	39	0.9	12	153	730	673	1403	52
COLTON SISSONS	C	28	NSH	79	7	21	0.4	4	87	719	572	1291	55.7
ALEKSANDER BARKOV	C	26	FLA	67	39	49	1.3	26	214	714	538	1252	57
NICK SUZUKI	C	22	MTL	82	21	40	0.7	20	186	700	710	1410	49.6
MIKA ZIBANEJAD	C	29	NYR	81	29	52	1.0	28	219	699	640	1339	52.2
JOEL ERIKSSON EK	C	25	MIN	77	26	24	0.6	17	223	698	767	1465	47.6
RYAN JOHANSEN	C	30	NSH	79	26	37	0.8	24	118	691	622	1313	52.6
AUSTON MATTHEWS	C	24	TOR	73	60	46	1.5	29	348	691	538	1229	56.2

I would still put all of these players in the good list. Ryan Johansen is putting up about five fewer faceoff wins over an average week than Tavares (our worst elite player), and 15 fewer than Bergeron. We are also running into the problem now of players who are good at faceoffs, but not much else. Jordan Staal, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, Colton Sissions, Joel Eriksson Ek all are significantly deficient in points that rostering them could really hurt you in other categories (they all happen to also be pretty good at hits, so in some formats are definitely still worth investment).

If we apply a little filtering here that means there are only 21 centers who won over 600 faceoff wins, and also put up a point per game rate .7 or higher (a low bar – 57 full season pace). It drops to 16 if we bump it up even to just .75 points per game (roughly a 62-point full season pace).

Here is that full list:

Name	Pos	Age	Team	GP	G	A	PTS/G	PPP	SOG	FOW	FOL	FO	FO%
PATRICE BERGERON	C	37	BOS	73	25	40	0.9	23	293	991	609	1600	61.9
LEON DRAISAITL	L	26	EDM	80	55	55	1.4	41	278	885	774	1659	53.3
ANZE KOPITAR	C	34	L.A	81	19	48	0.8	22	210	858	651	1509	56.9
ELIAS LINDHOLM	C	27	CGY	82	42	40	1.0	19	235	842	750	1592	52.9
JOHN TAVARES	C	31	TOR	79	27	49	1.0	26	237	813	529	1342	60.6
TOMAS HERTL	C	28	S.J	82	30	34	0.8	16	205	770	696	1466	52.5
SIDNEY CROSBY	C	35	PIT	69	31	53	1.2	30	208	760	690	1450	52.4
CLAUDE GIROUX	R	34	OTT	75	21	43	0.9	23	205	733	483	1216	60.3
NICO HISCHIER	C	23	N.J	70	21	39	0.9	12	153	730	673	1403	52
ALEKSANDER BARKOV	C	26	FLA	67	39	49	1.3	26	214	714	538	1252	57
MIKA ZIBANEJAD	C	29	NYR	81	29	52	1.0	28	219	699	640	1339	52.2
RYAN JOHANSEN	C	30	NSH	79	26	37	0.8	24	118	691	622	1313	52.6
AUSTON MATTHEWS	C	24	TOR	73	60	46	1.5	29	348	691	538	1229	56.2
J.T. MILLER	C	29	VAN	80	32	67	1.2	38	206	666	567	1233	54
CHANDLER STEPHENSON	C	28	VGK	79	21	43	0.8	14	125	653	602	1255	52
DYLAN LARKIN	C	26	DET	71	31	38	1.0	13	212	632	573	1205	52.4

The idea here is that if you are only rostering three maybe four centers (and want to be competitive in FOW) you can't afford to not draft from this list. And there are only 16 of them. And your Dylan Larkin's, while still relevant, are only putting up two thirds of the production of your top guys. Meaning that if your top faceoff win guy is Larkin you still have a lot of backfilling to do.

I hope the point is made at this stage that you can't just draft any center and expect to be competitive in faceoffs. But to drive it home, here is a list of players who pointed above .75 (so are likely very fantasy relevant otherwise) who put up fewer than 500 faceoff wins.

Name	Pos	Age	Team	GP	G	A	PTS/G	PPP	SOG	FOW	FOL	FO	FO%
BROCK NELSON	C	30	NYI	72	37	22	0.8	14	171	476	488	964	49.4
MARK SCHEIFELE	C	29	WPG	67	29	41	1.0	18	159	429	419	848	50.6
TAGE THOMPSON	C	24	BUF	78	38	30	0.9	16	253	393	582	975	40.3
NATHAN MACKINNON	C	26	COL	65	32	56	1.4	27	299	382	460	842	45.4
BRAYDEN POINT	C	26	T.B	66	28	30	0.9	22	175	366	351	717	51
ROOPE HINTZ	C	25	DAL	80	37	35	0.9	24	213	357	317	674	53
ELIAS PETTERSSON	C	23	VAN	80	32	36	0.9	27	192	238	303	541	44
MATHEW BARZAL	C	25	NYI	73	15	44	0.8	20	161	234	271	505	46.3
TREVOR ZEGRAS	C	21	ANA	75	23	38	0.8	17	181	217	328	545	39.8
RYAN NUGENT-HOPKINS	C	29	EDM	63	11	39	0.8	23	154	178	259	437	40.7

And this list doesn't include guys who often get hurt and miss time (Evgeni Malkin, Jack Hughes etc.). Also in case anyone is curious Connor McDavid just misses this list with 562 faceoffs in 21-22.

If you are drafting these guys at your center position you are at a huge disadvantage when it comes to faceoffs. You might be pumped from a points perspective to have Nathan Mackinnon and Roope Hintz as your centers but in an average week you might get 31 faceoff wins from them. If your opponent has Draisaitl (who they can slot in at wing) they would already average more faceoff wins than you in an average week (33) with just the single player. That means your remaining two-ish players would have to do more than their remaining three-ish players (assuming four players who contribute). It is a big hill to climb.

Another key here (as we have noted above) is wingers who can take faceoffs. When looking at wingers our criteria for faceoffs can be a bit more flexible as they can slot into a number of positions. The difficulty is that each platform manages position eligibility a little differently. In our Dobber reports we really have three dedicated wingers who take a meaningful number of faceoffs.

Name	Pos	Age	Team	GP	G	A	PTS/G	PPP	SOG	FOW	FOL	FO	FO%
LEON DRAISAITL	L	26	EDM	80	55	55	1.4	41	278	885	774	1659	53.3
CLAUDE GIROUX	R	34	OTT	75	21	43	0.9	23	205	733	483	1216	60.3
JOE PAVELSKI	R	38	DAL	82	27	54	1.0	25	216	394	357	751	52.5

In platforms like Yahoo though, you have more flexibility with quite a few players both with relevant point and face off production.

Name	Position	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	SOG	PPP	HITS	BKS	FW
LEON DRAISAITL	C,LW	EDM	82	51	66	117	271	47	50	22	840
CLAUDE GIROUX	C,RW	OTT	79	22	42	64	203	21	58	16	750
J.T. MILLER	C,LW	VAN	80	30	60	90	194	32	150	47	543
CHANDLER STEPHENSON	C,RW	VGK	78	19	37	56	119	9	66	44	504
TYLER SEGUIN	C,RW	DAL	75	24	31	54	217	14	90	32	500
STEVEN STAMKOS	C,LW	TBL	73	39	45	84	218	29	82	27	476
JOE PAVELSKI	C,RW	DAL	81	25	44	68	192	23	91	63	437
BRAYDEN SCHENN	C,LW	STL	75	25	35	60	144	19	140	29	379
GABRIEL LANDESKOG	C,LW	COL	67	32	37	69	192	19	110	41	338
ANDREW COPP	C,RW	DET	76	19	32	52	171	9	68	46	324
MATT DUCHENE	RW	NSH	74	29	34	63	191	18	42	25	279

This all brings us back to the original point. If you are using faceoff wins as a category it adds a lot of complexity and consideration to your center decisions. A typical strategy for drafting centers (after the top couple of elite ones) is don't. It is such a deep position you can get them late, or pick up some good free agent ones. With the addition of faceoff wins though, you have to decide early in your drafting strategy whether you are going for a couple of big guns (as they will be gone very quickly), getting contributions across your whole forward core (which severely limits the player you can target), or punting the category entirely.

That is all for this week

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