Why face-off wins matter 50% of the time
TD Ierlan and Tyler Halls (Photo: Ryan McCullough)
Earlier this week, the Buffalo Bandits brought Max Adler into the fold, presumably for one precise purpose. His skills at centre.
In the team’s first loss of the season, Buffalo was bullied at the face-off circle when the Toronto Rock’s TD Ierlan took 25 of 26 draws against a Bandits foursome that failed to free or force much: Chase Fraser (1/8), Nick Weiss (0/9), Brent Noseworthy (0/7) and Ian MacKay (0/2).
The Bandits getting beaten in faceoffs has been a regular occurrence this year, but until this past weekend, it didn’t seem to matter much.
Nick Weiss, Buffalo Bandits (Photo: Christian Bender)
Here’s Buffalo’s results this year, plus their win percentage at centre:
Dec. 4th vs. Calgary 16-9W (38%)
Dec. 11th at Rochester 12-8W (38%)
Jan. 8th vs. Toronto 12-6W (18%)
Jan. 14th vs. Georgia 12-10W (31%)
Jan. 30th at New York 18-17W (41%)
Feb. 5th vs. Rochester 11-8W (39%)
Feb. 12th at Toronto 12-10L (4%)
While their 4%-win rate against the Rock was by far their worst of the season, the Bandits hadn’t beaten a team on draws once this year during an unblemished & unbeaten run that was erased by Ierlan & Co. last week.
The addition of an American face-off taker like Adler has become a growing trend in the NLL, at least in the East. A decade or more ago, NLL clubs started cutting loose anyone that came close to being a FOGO (face off, get off). Most GMs felt a roster spot was far too valuable to be taken up by a player that essentially did one thing really well, but was mediocre or worse at the rest.
Now field-first (often field-only) Americans are owning more role-specific roster spots than had more recently been the norm. Many of those players, like Trevor Baptiste (Philadelphia), Joe Nardella (Albany) and now Ierlan, are also committing to box lacrosse and becoming pretty good runners too. The odd Canadian like Geoff Snider or Jake Withers, currently carving up pretty much everyone, do pop up, but those type of versatile face-off freaks of nature are incredibly rare.
Trevor Baptiste, Philadelphia Wings
So, will Adler make a difference in Buffalo? Maybe? Does it even matter?
Critics of indoor FOGOs or even face-off-first players often say, “Winning more faceoffs doesn’t correlate to winning more games.” And they’d be right, but it’s also a bit of an odd and somewhat inaccurate conclusion.
Does winning more loose balls lock up a W? If it doesn’t, should teams forget about fielding a good ground-ball getter altogether? In fact, high loose-ball counts are usually celebrated in pro box. But should they?
So because a face-off win doesn’t necessarily mean an extra W in the standings, why are many teams signing face-off specialist faster than any other post-MILL or modern-era campaign? The addition of someone like Adler in the middle of the season seems even more shocking, but also further confirms just how real today’s face-off-taking trend is.
We looked at the 53 games that have been played in the league so far this year and examined what stats led to victory more often and which ones led to a long line of losses?
Note: If teams in a game were tied in a specific stat, we excluded that game’s results from this analysis.
More Loose Balls
Shockingly, the team that has out hustled the opposition for more loosies usually loses, this year at least. The final count was 21W to 30L for the team taking more free balls off the turf.
More Caused Turnovers
The team with more forced fails by their opponent wins most of the time, but it really isn’t all that overwhelming, right?
Fewer Turnovers
Giving the ball away the least number of times helped teams out more than most other past-the-scoreboard stats we looked at. Again, at 60%, winning the turnover battle doesn’t necessarily translate to screaming success though.
More Shots on Goal
More shots on target must mean more goals, which ultimately means more wins, right? Sometimes. If faceoffs don’t matter, should we tell shooters to, well, not shoot so much because it doesn’t make too much of a difference? If having a legit face-off man taking your draws doesn’t directly translate to a W, should all NLL teams transition to shy shooters while dumping their drawman too?
More Power-Play Goals
It wasn’t all that many years ago that a powerful power-play unit was as trendy as today’s face-off phenoms. Well, if you score more man-up goals in 2022, you’re more likely to lose the game, at least that’s what the numbers tell us.
Note: We looked at PP goals, not PP%, but honestly, like everything else here, it probably wouldn’t have made that much of a difference.
Fewer PIMs
When Devan Kaney or Ashley Docking have bombarded a bench boss at halftime (kidding!), several times this year the coach has quipped, “We have to do a better job of staying out of the box and giving up so many power-play chances.” Actually, it doesn’t seem to matter. In fact, teams who’ve sat in the sin bin longer in games this year are winning more often. So more roughing calls equals more wins, right? Honestly, that would be amazing if true. Anyone ready for a War on the Floor revival?
More Face-Off Wins
Honestly, 50/50 is the most perfect percentage we could have asked for here.
More Goals
Yep, the only statistic that 100% of the time guarantees a game for any team, in any league, in any sport, ever.
Will Max Adler prevent the Bandits from routinely getting beaten up on draws? Probably. Will every game he wins more FOs against the guy across from him translate to a Buffalo victory? Breaking news: no.
So, do faceoffs matter? Of course, they do. They matter as much as any loose ball scooped, any turnover for or against, and pretty much any other stat or role required to play a game in this league.
Ask any NLL coach whether they’d want to win a faceoff or any of the above-analyzed facets of a game, and every single one of them will say yes absolutely every single time. There’s only one guarantee in any NLL game; score more times than the opposition and you win.
The way every team gets to that W is up to them, and at least for now, the Buffalo Bandits’ attempts at victory will be done with an added edge like Max Adler in their lineup. Well, with Adler likely in the lineup when they see TD Ierlan, Jake Withers, Trevor Baptiste, and tonight, Albany’s Joe Nardella.