Random Thoughts: What is the Critical Percentage of Faceoff Wins?

My random thoughts…

This happens from time to time, I hit writer’s block.  It wasn’t surprising that it was this week of all weeks that it happened as its my busiest week at work of the entire year.  Running analytics and variance tests on numbers all day just doesn’t work well when you’re trying to write opinions on this past weekend’s games.

Normally when I hit writer’s block, I’ll look at having a reader’s mailbag.  But that’s already been done this week, so what else can we look at? Numbers.  Yes, my mind is fixated on analytics right now, so more analytics is right down my alley.

What came to mind was to re-analyze numbers that Graeme Perrow had put together pre-pandemic in which years of data had shown that there was no real correlation between the number of faceoff wins you had and your winning percentage, and in fact, teams lost more games when they won the faceoff battle than when they won it.

In fact, at that time, teams that won 80% or more of their faceoffs actually lost most of the time, although that data was heavily influenced by Trevor Baptiste and the number of huge faceoff win games he had with an expansion Philadelphia team that only had four wins.

Now with several teams having a faceoff specialist, has the data changed? Well, let’s look first at the data from the 2024-25 season.

2024-25 Season

This season there have been 45 games played to date.  While there is bound to be some statistical error with a smaller sample size, the data will lead us to some interesting conclusions.

Let’s start with the really basic stuff.  This season, winning teams are averaging 54.2% at the dot.  That’s a 8.4% advantage on their opponents.  In the average game, the team that wins the game wins the faceoff battle 14.9 to 12.6.  Its not a huge advantage, but it is an advantage.

Where the data is more lopsided though, the team that wins the faceoff battle has an overall record of 28-17.  It’s a winning percentage of 62%, which is a little more relevant.  Roughly 5 in 8 games are won by the team that wins the faceoff battle and 3 in 8 games by the team that loses it.

Its more interesting though to look at the discrepancies in win percentage when its by decile.

Faceoff %	Team’s Overall Record
50-59%	7-7
60-69%	12-6
70-79%	6-2
80%+	3-2

If the battle is really close, there is no correlation between the overall record.  But once those scales tip beyond 60%, then the numbers shift, where teams with a faceoff win rate in the 60’s have a win percentage of 67% and teams with a faceoff win rate in the 70’s have a win percentage of 75%.

The five games where the win percentage was in the 80’s were the following: Albany defeated Toronto in week 2 (87%), Saskatchewan defeated Rochester in week 4 (83%), Calgary defeated Georgia this past weekend (89%), Vegas defeated Albany in week 6 (18%) and San Diego defeated Ottawa in week 6 (13%). 

No team has won more than 90% of the draws in a game yet this season. 

The next set of data that I pulled up was to see if there was any differences in each team’s faceoff percentage based on whether they won or lost.  Several teams were within 6% if they won or lost, but there were a handful of teams that had some significant variances.  The teams with more than a 6% difference are:

Team	FO% in Wins	FO% in Losses
Albany	74%	60%
Georgia	59%	30%
Las Vegas	26%	44%
Rochester	52%	42%
Toronto	61%	28%

There is certainly some statistical error in the Toronto number as they have only won one game, and it was the only game that TD Ierlan has played this season so far.

2023-24 Season

If we compare the data so far to the data from last season, there are some good comparisons.  The only potential glitch in the data is that fewer teams were using a pure FOGO so you have a higher percentage of games where someone won more than 80%, and in fact, 6 games where someone won 90%+ of the draws.  The other nice thing about the 2023-24 data is that with a full season, statistical error drops significantly with 135 games of data as compared to just 45 games so far in 2024-25.

In the 2023-24 season, the winning team won faceoffs 54.4% of the time, nearly identical to the 54.2% so far this season.  The winning team had a slightly larger faceoff win percentage difference of 8.8% compared to this season’s 8.4%.

Last season, the winning team won on average 14.7 of 27 draws, a numerical advantage of just 1.7 draws per game.

The team that won the battle at the dot won 75 times (56%) and lost 56 times (41%).  Four games ended up in a tie at the dot (3%).

There were some significant differences in the winning record of the team that won the faceoff battle by decile however.  This is to be expected with some statistical margin of error with the smaller sample size in the current season.

Faceoff Win %	Team’s Overall Record
50.1-59%	19-16
60-69%	20-23
70-79%	15-10
80-89%	16-6
90%+	5-1

The data from last year shows a surprising losing record when a team won the faceoff battle in the 60’s decile, but a much more dominating win percentage when a team won the faceoff battle in the 80’s and 90’s decile.

And yes, one team managed to win a game despite losing more than 90% of the draws, a game early in the season between Philadelphia and Halifax where Halifax won 31 of 34 draws (91.2%).

As for the teams with more than a 6% variance in their faceoff win percentage when they won compared to when they lost:

Team	FO% in Wins	FO% in Losses
Buffalo	45%	31%
Colorado	57%	49%
New York	58%	46%
Panther City	41%	28%
Saskatchewan	43%	29%
Toronto	68%	57%

The Buffalo difference shouldn’t be surprising given the win streak the team went on after acquiring Connor Farrell.  Saskatchewan’s percentage shows the need they had for Jake Naso.  Saskatchewan lost 8 of 9 close games last season.  The faceoff percentages in those losses show the need for a specialist.  Oddly enough, Philadelphia had the exact same percentage when they won or lost, to the first decimal of a percent.

Conclusions

The data set has certainly changed the last few years with the quality of the faceoff specialists we are seeing today.  Teams winning the faceoff battle are winning more often.  The situation where teams won more than 80% of their faceoffs having a losing record is no longer the case.

This year the shift in the winning record of teams in the 60’s decile is the increase in faceoff specialists we are seeing this season.  When you look at the league leaders in faceoffs, most of them are in the 60’s decile, a lower number than we saw last season.

If a team is still winning 40% of their draws, there isn’t a huge difference in results in overall winning record, but once that percentage goes over 40%, we’re seeing a difference.

Until next time…