Goal Scoring. How Will Sabres Increase Number Of Goals Scored?

[LGR4GM]

15 minutes ago, PerreaultForever said:

A face off win on the PP saves you 20-30 seconds. It matters. 

Just went and double checked. First, Buffalo was worst in the league because Granato failed. First in the league was Pittsburgh. Montreal is top 10 as is the NYI. The difference between first and last is about 10% so that's maybe 3 faceoff wins more than your opponent a game. Not saying we don't need to be better but the issue isn't simply win faceoffs and we'll be better, the best faceoff team in the league isn't a playoff team. 

[PerreaultForever]

43 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

I've charted it on this very board. The correlation between good faceoff teams and winning is almost non existent. 

So you're arguing against the fact that a face off win on the PP gives you an extra 20-30 seconds of power play time in the O zone?

 

[Night Train]

22 hours ago, bob_sauve28 said:

We saw a big drop off this year in goals scored. PP sucked, even strength was not great and several players went backwards.

* Does that mean a trade or Free Agency needs to address this need?

 From the initial post

 

YES

[CallawaySabres]

I would say by getting better players, but what do I know. 

[bob_sauve28]

35 minutes ago, Night Train said:

 From the initial post

 

YES

 

I just looked this up

 

https://thehockeywriters.com/2024-nhl-free-agents/

May 3, 2024 by Alex Chauvancy

The 2023 free-agent class may have been underwhelming, but 2024 has the potential to be different. Much different. Headlined by high-end talent and plenty of depth, the 2024 crop of NHL unrestricted free agents may be the best we’ve seen in years, even after some notable names have signed contract extensions. Let’s look at some marquee UFAs and present our preliminary top 30. 

Star Talent Leads the Way

The 2023 UFA class severely lacked high-end talent. There were good players, but most were second-tier free agents who didn’t earn top dollar or max term. For example, among the 2024 class had Auston Matthews, but he signed a four-year extension during the summer worth $13.25 million annually. Still, there is plenty of talent without Matthews. 

Leading the way is Sam Reinhart, who had a monster career season, totaling 57 goals and 94 points in 82 games. The Florida Panthers were again one of the East’s top teams, and Reinhart’s play was a significant reason. Has he priced himself out of staying in Florida? Time will tell, but he will secure the bag one way or another.

 

Steven Stamkos has played his entire career with the Tampa Bay Lightning. While I don’t expect that to change, he remains unsigned as of now as he did when he approached free agency in 2016. He’s unlikely to get significant term since he’s 34, but he’s still a point-per-game player. There will be plenty of interest in him if he hits the market. 

There isn’t as much talent defensively as there is up front, but there are some intriguing names. Devon Toews was the top UFA defenseman until he signed a seven-year extension worth $7.25 million annually with the Colorado Avalanche. Still, names like Brandon Montour, Brett Pesce and Brady Skjei will interest clubs if they make it to July 1 unsigned.

Related: Jets Re-Sign Hellebuyck and Scheifele to Seven-Year Extensions

Rounding out some of the star talent are Joe Pavelski and Jake Guentzel. Pavelski may be 39, but he just put up a 67-point season. There will be plenty of interest in him on a one-year deal, which adds to his value if he wants to keep playing. Guentzel has been one of the top goal-scorers in the NHL for half a decade, and it’s not a product of playing alongside Sidney Crosby, as he showed after the trade to the Carolina Hurricanes. He will get his money, too.

[Doohickie]

13 hours ago, SDS said:

How many players in the playoffs this year did you consider played the wrong way when they were on the team?

Start with pullup boy.  He's been good in the playoffs (as I knew he would be... I just wanted it to be with the Sabres).

[Doohickie]

12 hours ago, GoPuckYourself said:

If we go into this season with the roster as is with rookies sprinkled in again it will be another long season. We need toughness, grit, backup goalie worth a damn, rugged defensemen and definitely need to upgrade Skinner on the top line. He wouldn't be on any teams top line in these playoffs. Adams has his work cut out for him and hasn't addressed those needs yet and it's going into year 5 so hopefully 5th times a charm? 

I disagree.  I think Lindy would have gotten this past year's roster to the playoffs as is.  That said, I won't be surprised if a rookie or two make the club, but I do expect some of holes created by outgoing players to be filled by established vets.

11 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

So you're arguing against the fact that a face off win on the PP gives you an extra 20-30 seconds of power play time in the O zone?

 

What he's saying is that it simply doesn't correlate to more wins.

[LGR4GM]

10 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

So you're arguing against the fact that a face off win on the PP gives you an extra 20-30 seconds of power play time in the O zone?

No, I am not. If you had better reading comprehension and not this incessant desire to one up everyone around here constantly, while comparing every other thing to the Bruins, you would realize that. Also, nice strawman argument. 

Let's do this correctly. I can look at 5v4 (normal pp) numbers. So this wont cover all the pp numbers but the majority, as 4v3 and 5v3 are excluded. 

Buffalo ranks 31st in FOW% with a 48.32%. I am using goals for per 60 to adjust for ice time. Buffalo ranks 28th with 5.83 GF/60 on the pp. At face value this supports the idea that PP success and FOW go together. However we need more data points and so let us look at the 2nd team in FOW% Pittsburgh. At 60.45% they are 12.13% above Buffalo for FOW%. Sounds great... until you sort by GF/60 and Pittsburgh plummets to 29th. Pitt has the 2nd best FOW% but the 29th best GF/60 on the pp. You really get a mixed bag when you compare the two variables. In this case we are using faceoff wins as the independent variable for scoring pp goals aka the dependent variable. Ottawa sits 4th in FOW% with 57.92% but drops to 26th in GF/60 with 6.25. In fact there are 4 teams below 7 GF/60 in the top 10 of FOW% meaning that there are at least 4 teams that are 21st or worse in GF/60 on the PP. Now the inverse of that is this, the other 6 teams in the top 10 for FOW% are also in the top 12 for GF/60. 

Where I am I going with this? Winning faceoffs can matter. I think we can all easily agree on that but I use the word "can" because sometimes it doesn't. You know those draws you win and it splits the defender and scoots down the ice? You get 1 win for that but it doesn't help your team. You know the draw you win by slamming it forward into the corner there is a puck battle? You get a win for that too but depending on the puck battle depends on if it matters. What I am saying is all FOW are not the same even though the counting stat treats them the same. Buffalo needs to be better at faceoffs for sure. Every little bit helps and being better at faceoffs is a little bit of help. But we can see with a team like Pittsburgh, who was 2nd in the entire league that FOW% alone doesn't improve your PP, hell Pittsburgh had a worse PP than we did (again at 5v4). The NYR have the best FOW but are 5th for GF/60, TB has the best GF/60 but is 26th in FOW. 

What I can tell you is that having a good GF/60 on the pp matters to playoffs. Out of the top 10 teams, 6 are still in the playoffs now and 9 of 10 made the playoffs with Arizona being the exception. In the bottom 10, the only team that made the playoffs was Winnipeg. Shoutout to Wash and Vegas though who are just outside that cutoff. The conclusion here is simple, you can be good at the PP but bad at faceoffs, you can be good at faceoffs but bad at PP. You can be bad at faceoffs but a playoff team but you can't really be bad at PP and be a playoff team. 

Am I arguing against the "fact" (it isn't a fact at all) that winning a faceoff could give you more zone time on the PP, not really because I don't have any data to support or reject that claim. Of note, you have not presented any data that would support your claim. What I am arguing against is the notion that being good at FOW will magically make the PP better because the numbers don't support that. I would guess that FOW have less impact on PP success than other factors that are not part of this discussion. For example HDSF has a bit stronger correlation although even then, Buffalo sits 32nd and Pitt sits 5th so clearly other factors are involved (like screens, shot selection, pre shot movement, all the other stuff I don't have). Will fixing the Sabres faceoff wins make us better, probably, but will it magically make the PP better... no. Other things are more important to fix, my guess is pre-shot movement is the biggest one from what ik about models that track that and use it in their expected goals. 

Hopefully this helps you understand my original point. 

[JoeSchmoe]

13 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

So you're arguing against the fact that a face off win on the PP gives you an extra 20-30 seconds of power play time in the O zone?

 

The issue is that the difference between a good face-off team and a bad one is pretty small. 

The very BEST teams in the league will win about 1 more face-off out of 10 vs the very WORST teams. 

If there was a way to win 100% of face-offs you could really make a difference. But the reality is A VERY GOOD FACE-OFF TEAM WILL WIN ABOUT 3 MORE FACE-OFFS OUT OF 100 VS AN AVERAGE FACE-OFF TEAM. The advantages of this is pretty negligible compared to going out and getting better players that score more. 

[PerreaultForever]

3 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

No, I am not. If you had better reading comprehension and not this incessant desire to one up everyone around here constantly, while comparing every other thing to the Bruins, you would realize that. Also, nice strawman argument. 

Let's do this correctly. I can look at 5v4 (normal pp) numbers. So this wont cover all the pp numbers but the majority, as 4v3 and 5v3 are excluded. 

Buffalo ranks 31st in FOW% with a 48.32%. I am using goals for per 60 to adjust for ice time. Buffalo ranks 28th with 5.83 GF/60 on the pp. At face value this supports the idea that PP success and FOW go together. However we need more data points and so let us look at the 2nd team in FOW% Pittsburgh. At 60.45% they are 12.13% above Buffalo for FOW%. Sounds great... until you sort by GF/60 and Pittsburgh plummets to 29th. Pitt has the 2nd best FOW% but the 29th best GF/60 on the pp. You really get a mixed bag when you compare the two variables. In this case we are using faceoff wins as the independent variable for scoring pp goals aka the dependent variable. Ottawa sits 4th in FOW% with 57.92% but drops to 26th in GF/60 with 6.25. In fact there are 4 teams below 7 GF/60 in the top 10 of FOW% meaning that there are at least 4 teams that are 21st or worse in GF/60 on the PP. Now the inverse of that is this, the other 6 teams in the top 10 for FOW% are also in the top 12 for GF/60. 

Where I am I going with this? Winning faceoffs can matter. I think we can all easily agree on that but I use the word "can" because sometimes it doesn't. You know those draws you win and it splits the defender and scoots down the ice? You get 1 win for that but it doesn't help your team. You know the draw you win by slamming it forward into the corner there is a puck battle? You get a win for that too but depending on the puck battle depends on if it matters. What I am saying is all FOW are not the same even though the counting stat treats them the same. Buffalo needs to be better at faceoffs for sure. Every little bit helps and being better at faceoffs is a little bit of help. But we can see with a team like Pittsburgh, who was 2nd in the entire league that FOW% alone doesn't improve your PP, hell Pittsburgh had a worse PP than we did (again at 5v4). The NYR have the best FOW but are 5th for GF/60, TB has the best GF/60 but is 26th in FOW. 

What I can tell you is that having a good GF/60 on the pp matters to playoffs. Out of the top 10 teams, 6 are still in the playoffs now and 9 of 10 made the playoffs with Arizona being the exception. In the bottom 10, the only team that made the playoffs was Winnipeg. Shoutout to Wash and Vegas though who are just outside that cutoff. The conclusion here is simple, you can be good at the PP but bad at faceoffs, you can be good at faceoffs but bad at PP. You can be bad at faceoffs but a playoff team but you can't really be bad at PP and be a playoff team. 

Am I arguing against the "fact" (it isn't a fact at all) that winning a faceoff could give you more zone time on the PP, not really because I don't have any data to support or reject that claim. Of note, you have not presented any data that would support your claim. What I am arguing against is the notion that being good at FOW will magically make the PP better because the numbers don't support that. I would guess that FOW have less impact on PP success than other factors that are not part of this discussion. For example HDSF has a bit stronger correlation although even then, Buffalo sits 32nd and Pitt sits 5th so clearly other factors are involved (like screens, shot selection, pre shot movement, all the other stuff I don't have). Will fixing the Sabres faceoff wins make us better, probably, but will it magically make the PP better... no. Other things are more important to fix, my guess is pre-shot movement is the biggest one from what ik about models that track that and use it in their expected goals. 

Hopefully this helps you understand my original point. 

Stats are a funny thing. There are many factors that go in to many things and correlating face offs with wins would be an extremely difficult argument to isolate accurately without considering all the other factors that go into wins. 

But there are simple things that just make sense. You win a face off, you have the puck. That's a good thing. What you do with it after that is a whole other set of issues and data. Hence, face offs matter. 

[PerreaultForever]

2 hours ago, JoeSchmoe said:

The issue is that the difference between a good face-off team and a bad one is pretty small. 

The very BEST teams in the league will win about 1 more face-off out of 10 vs the very WORST teams. 

If there was a way to win 100% of face-offs you could really make a difference. But the reality is A VERY GOOD FACE-OFF TEAM WILL WIN ABOUT 3 MORE FACE-OFFS OUT OF 100 VS AN AVERAGE FACE-OFF TEAM. The advantages of this is pretty negligible compared to going out and getting better players that score more. 

(sigh) Okay but that's the trouble with stats. This overall averaging pile of numbers blurs the realities of the situation.

Face offs are a situational play. They are at times a key situational play that can change a game's outcome. 

It's not about how many face offs you won all year or even all through a game, it's if you won key face offs at key moments.

Examples, you get a PP 20 seconds before a period ends, winning that face off matters a lot. There's a minute to go and you pull the goalie, winning that face off matters a lot. Same in the reverse on the defensive side. You can kill the clock, end the game, take away a final scoring chance, get an empty netter. It all matters a lot.

If you want to hyper analyze stats and look at things like percentages when down a goal (or up a goal) in the final minutes with a goalie pulled or other key moments, then you might have something to look at. But just looking at the league and which team won more faceoffs over the year is pretty meaningless because the overall differences are only a few points around that 50/50 mark. It's not about how many faceoffs you win it's about winning the important ones at the important times. That's when teams send out their RORs or whoever is their top faceoff guy. We don't have one. 

[JoeSchmoe]

42 minutes ago, PerreaultForever said:

(sigh) Okay but that's the trouble with stats. This overall averaging pile of numbers blurs the realities of the situation.

Face offs are a situational play. They are at times a key situational play that can change a game's outcome. 

It's not about how many face offs you won all year or even all through a game, it's if you won key face offs at key moments.

Examples, you get a PP 20 seconds before a period ends, winning that face off matters a lot. There's a minute to go and you pull the goalie, winning that face off matters a lot. Same in the reverse on the defensive side. You can kill the clock, end the game, take away a final scoring chance, get an empty netter. It all matters a lot.

If you want to hyper analyze stats and look at things like percentages when down a goal (or up a goal) in the final minutes with a goalie pulled or other key moments, then you might have something to look at. But just looking at the league and which team won more faceoffs over the year is pretty meaningless because the overall differences are only a few points around that 50/50 mark. It's not about how many faceoffs you win it's about winning the important ones at the important times. That's when teams send out their RORs or whoever is their top faceoff guy. We don't have one. 

Everything you're saying is predicated upon thinking there's a unicorn that gets you 100% face-off winning percentage at key times in a game.

ROR's career average is 55.7%.  Sending him out there in crunch time gives you a 5.7% better chance of winning the puck vs the league average guy. You'll take that chance every time, but realistically it's not that much.

EDIT- at key times, the other team is probably going to send out their top guy too. So if their guy is a career 53% guy, you'll win about 3 more faceoffs out of a 100 with ROR.

Edited May 16 by JoeSchmoe

[Taro T]

34 minutes ago, PerreaultForever said:

(sigh) Okay but that's the trouble with stats. This overall averaging pile of numbers blurs the realities of the situation.

Face offs are a situational play. They are at times a key situational play that can change a game's outcome. 

It's not about how many face offs you won all year or even all through a game, it's if you won key face offs at key moments.

Examples, you get a PP 20 seconds before a period ends, winning that face off matters a lot. There's a minute to go and you pull the goalie, winning that face off matters a lot. Same in the reverse on the defensive side. You can kill the clock, end the game, take away a final scoring chance, get an empty netter. It all matters a lot.

If you want to hyper analyze stats and look at things like percentages when down a goal (or up a goal) in the final minutes with a goalie pulled or other key moments, then you might have something to look at. But just looking at the league and which team won more faceoffs over the year is pretty meaningless because the overall differences are only a few points around that 50/50 mark. It's not about how many faceoffs you win it's about winning the important ones at the important times. That's when teams send out their RORs or whoever is their top faceoff guy. We don't have one. 

Yes.

There's also the fact that really good faceoff specialists oftentimes don't go "all out" for neutral zone face-offs or others that may not be happening at critical times; but they darn sure are going to use their best moves to get the win when it could mean the difference between 2 points and 0.

Would also be interested in seeing FO %ages broken out by handedness (LS, RS, CI) and where the faceoff occurs (O zone, D zone, or neutral) as those will also factor into how well a guy does at the dot.  The teams definitely have that info; not sure if the other sources make that public or not.

Plus, on every single FO, a winner and a loser is declared, but many end up in an additional scrum or 2 as there isn't a clean win and those tend not to be dangerous very often; but a clean win in the offensive zone will far more often than not result in an uncontested shot where the goalie has to be moving to square to the shooter.  It's a free high danger chance and those turn games.  And that clean win in the D zone can lead to a nice breakout rush that some teams are very poor at defending.  (Heck, not faceoff specific but look at the Sabres PK.  There were times where they were worse off due to a clear than had the puck continued to have been bouncing around harmlessly in the corner because the opponent got a full head of steam bringing it back up ice and the Sabres had no idea on how to slow that entry down until the puck was in the slot and it was too late.) 

And, as you would almost definitely agree, faceoffs don't matter - except when they do.  And a whole lot of small don't matters can add up to a big does matter.  (That last one not just referring to FOs.)

[Taro T]

13 minutes ago, JoeSchmoe said:

Everything you're saying is predicated upon thinking there's a unicorn that gets you 100% face-off winning percentage at key times in a game.

ROR's career average is 55.7%.  Sending him out there in crunch time gives you a 5.7% better chance of winning the puck vs the league average guy. You'll take that chance every time, but realistically it's not that much.

EDIT- at key times, the other team is probably going to send out their top guy too. So if their guy is a career 53% guy, you'll win about 3 more faceoffs out of a 100 with ROR.

So, you don't see that there is a situationality to when O'Reilly or Crosby win those FOs?  Would almost have money on it that O'Reilly's career FO% is higher in the O-zone than it is in the neutral zone.  Could see either or both of them (meaning ROR or Crosby) being right around 50% there because it doesn't matter as much as other faceoffs matter.  Would also expect that his D-zone win rate is higher than average even though it's likely lower than in the O-zone because he doesn't have the same advantages in the D zone as in the O zone.

Where and when a FO occurs goes a long way towards just how hard a guy is going to try to win it.  He's not going to get his opponent used to facing his best move and possibly figuring out a counter at CI or the other guy's BL very often.

Edited May 16 by Taro T

[LGR4GM]

1 hour ago, PerreaultForever said:

Stats are a funny thing. There are many factors that go in to many things and correlating face offs with wins would be an extremely difficult argument to isolate accurately without considering all the other factors that go into wins. 

But there are simple things that just make sense. You win a face off, you have the puck. That's a good thing. What you do with it after that is a whole other set of issues and data. Hence, face offs matter. 

No. No you don't. Sometimes you do yes but every faceoff win does not mean you control the puck. 

Talking to you is pointless. You're so convinced of your own infallible superiority on every topic why even bother. 

Faceoffs can matter. But simply being better at them doesn't make the pp better as shown by facts. Not your feelings on the subject. 

1 minute ago, Taro T said:

So, you don't see that there is a situationality to when O'Reilly or Crosby win those FOs?  Would almost have money on it that O'Reilly's career FO% is higher in the O-zone than it is in the neutral zone.  Could see either or both of them being right around 50% there because it doesn't matter as much as other faceoffs matter.  Would also expect that his D-zone win rate is higher than average even though it's likely lower than in the O-zone because he doesn't have the same advantages in the D zone as in the O zone.

Where and when a FO occurs goes a long way towards just how hard a guy is going to try to win it.  He's not going to get his opponent used to facing his best move and possibly figuring out a counter at CI or the other guy's BL very often.

Doesn't matter for the stats I quoted. You're arguing a different point entirely. On the pp some of the best fow teams are the worst pp teams and vice versa. 

[TageMVP]

The problem is all the centers on this team stink at faceoffs. There's no actual center by definition on the team 

Speaking of, why is Tage a center still? Just move him to wing, that's how he plays anyway. Keep him on the 1st line if it's about line chemistry, just move him to wing 

And acquire/trade for an actual playmaking/pass first/defensively responsible center, the Sabres don't have any of those 

[TageMVP]

4 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

Talking to you is pointless. You're so convinced of your own infallible superiority on every topic why even bother. 

Did he steal your favorite Sabres jersey or something 

[LGR4GM]

I've said my piece. Since no one here makes decisions for the Sabres, I can only hope they (sabres) are not dumb enough to think an extra 7% in faceoff wins will fix the craptastic pp they run. 

[Taro T]

2 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

No. No you don't. Sometimes you do yes but every faceoff win does not mean you control the puck. 

Talking to you is pointless. You're so convinced of your own infallible superiority on every topic why even bother. 

Faceoffs can matter. But simply being better at them doesn't make the pp better as shown by facts. Not your feelings on the subject. 

Doesn't matter for the stats I quoted. You're arguing a different point entirely. On the pp some of the best fow teams are the worst pp teams and vice versa. 

Have no idea what stats YOU quoted.  The posters my 2 replys were directed at were replying to somebody other than you.  And yours truly's comments were in relation to that poster and the one he was quoting.

Considering you were not the person the reply was directed at, it is not at all surprising that it has nothing to do with what you said previously.  😉  Don't know what those were.

Have about 5 minutes between tasks to take a quick look at this site.  Didn't go back and reread the previous 2 pages of posts in this thread.

[TageMVP]

Just now, LGR4GM said:

I've said my piece. Since no one here makes decisions for the Sabres, I can only hope they are not dumb enough to think an extra 7% in faceoff wins will fix the craptastic pp they run. 

I think you're missing the point on what's being said about faceoff wins 

[JoeSchmoe]

6 minutes ago, Taro T said:

So, you don't see that there is a situationality to when O'Reilly or Crosby win those FOs?  Would almost have money on it that O'Reilly's career FO% is higher in the O-zone than it is in the neutral zone.  Could see either or both of them (meaning ROR or Crosby) being right around 50% there because it doesn't matter as much as other faceoffs matter.  Would also expect that his D-zone win rate is higher than average even though it's likely lower than in the O-zone because he doesn't have the same advantages in the D zone as in the O zone.

Where and when a FO occurs goes a long way towards just how hard a guy is going to try to win it.  He's not going to get his opponent used to facing his best move and possibly figuring out a counter at CI or the other guy's BL very often.

So it's a key faceoff with Crosby vs ROR. Do they both win 100% of the time?

I agree you put your best guy in there to get your extra couple % odds at winning. You just don't give up a roster spot for a face-off specialist a la Paul Gaustad for a 1st round pick.

[LGR4GM]

2 minutes ago, TageMVP said:

I think you're missing the point on what's being said about faceoff wins 

I think you and others have missed my point specifically about faceoff wins and pp success which was the original idea PerreaultForever tossed out. Granted there's 0 evidence a faceoff win on the pp gets you an extra 20 seconds of zone time but apparently my idea of looking at the numbers was dumb. They are just going to be ignored anyways. 

[SwampD]

On 5/15/2024 at 1:32 PM, dudacek said:

The bold in a nutshell is why Granato is not the coach any more and Lindy is.

It’s what all that crap about “being accountable” means and it’s the story to watch for the coming season.

DG never cut ice time when players sucked.

[Taro T]

43 minutes ago, JoeSchmoe said:

So it's a key faceoff with Crosby vs ROR. Do they both win 100% of the time?

I agree you put your best guy in there to get your extra couple % odds at winning. You just don't give up a roster spot for a face-off specialist a la Paul Gaustad for a 1st round pick.

The one in the offensive zone will likely win it more often than not, as he has the edge of better positioning relative to the opponent's stick placement.

But O'Reilly isn't going to win the "key faceoff" against an "average" opponent ONLY 55% of the time.  He'll win it significantly more than that because he's better than the other guy and he actually cares.  That 55% or whatever it was that was quoted for him takes into consideration all those FOs that he didn't really give a rat's rear end whether he won or not and even included a few where the PLAN was for him to LOSE the draw.

And sometimes, if you've got a good coach that cares about matchups, even one of those ho-hum draws could be important.  Suppose Detroit's 4th line had just been on a short shift in the 2nd period on the road and there's a draw at their offensive BL.  The bald guy decides to keep the line out there because Crosby's line isn't due up until 1 more shift from now but the Pens coach throws a modestly (though not fully) rested Syd & crew out there.  They win that draw and then force the play in the Detroit end forcing high %age chances and an eventual icing.  It was a nothing faceoff; but it enabled the Pens to start to generate flow and momentum.

In the aggregate and on the average would that FO matter when lumped in w/ 100's of others?  It wouldn't seem so.  But if it was parsed down and viewed as the event it was; then yes, it did most likely matter.

That seems to be what those who say that FOs do matter are getting at.  In general, they don't; but they individually are and all other things being equal, FO skill is a very good skill to have.

Lastly, FO proficiency is HIGHLY correlated with age/experience.  Rookies are typically very poor at it but if they work at it and get stronger, they can get much better at it.  Another downside to having such a young roster.  Could see Cozens becoming a very good FO man; maybe even Krebs.  But they're both pretty bad at it right now.

[JoeSchmoe]

46 minutes ago, Taro T said:

O'Reilly isn't going to win the "key faceoff" against an "average" opponent ONLY 55% of the time.  He'll win it significantly more than that because he's better than the other guy and he actually cares

Average guy wins 50% of draws. ROR wins 55%.  Game is on the line.

The takeaway is only ROR cares in that situation and he'll win nearly every time because he's that much better than the average guy who somehow manages to win 50 out of 100 draws, as opposed to ROR's 55 out of 100.

I feel like this is the same kind of logic that keeps casinos in business.