Faceoffs [2/2]

[jRuutu 2,464]

 

70 games played and only three players in the VHLM has won faceoffs with the rating of 60% or higher. Stronk from Oslo is the best faceoff taker in the league currently, 1924 taken and he has won whopping 67% of them! Albert from Las Vegas is second best with 65% win rating, but he has not taken as many faceoffs as Stronk for example, Albert has only taken 420 of them in 68 games, but important thing is that he is winning them home - faceoff won at your own end could be the difference if your team wins or loses. On the third place is Rauno Palo from Oslo, 1897 taken - won 62% of them.  

 

After those three players, only four others have won at least 50% of their faceoffs.  Revchenko (LVA) - 56.26%, Vega (YUK) - 56%, Von Moltke (OTT) - 50.83% and Pajari (OSL) - 50.47%.  What does all this mean? For one, Oslo has killer faceoff  takers, three players on the top-7, Las Vegas has two players on the top-4 and perhaps bit surprisingly, Yukon who has been a dominant team this year has only one player among the seven best faceoff takers. Ottawa and Van Moltke on the 6th place means that only Saskatoon does not have a center who has won at least 50% of the faceoffs.

 

I asked from Rauno Palo what is his secret and why Oslo has so many good faceoff takers? This is what he said:
 

Quote

 

I don´t think there is a secret or anything like that, just hard work and dedication. I don´t even know when I first started practicing faceoffs, but when I was 9 and on my first junior team, I was taking them almost daily, so at least from there to this point. Also, this might sound crazy, but when I was a little boy, during summer time I used to dig holes to the ground with my father. We would spend all day out there, just digging away and putting the dirt back into the holes. Sometimes we even had little races to see who would dig the biggest hole in five minutes. My father told me that he did the same with my grandfather when he was young and before that, my grandfather did the same with his father. I guess that is one reason why I´m personally fairly good on the faceoffs - got strong and wide back with good reflexes.

 

What comes down to Oslo being good at faceoffs, we practice them a lot. Before and after every practice session usually the centers go head to head to see who is the best that day. Sometimes wingers, defenders and even the goalies come and try, but they usually lose.

 

 

Remains to be seen if Oslo and their good faceoff takers can surprise Yukon and can Las Vegas do the same, both teams like mentioned have the best faceoff setup in the league. Yukon and Ottawa are on interesting spot, can the small advantage on faceoffs be a difference maker? In the playoffs any series could go all the way to game seven and like we all know, special teams and goals scored or scored against are absolutely massive in playoffs.

 

[diamond_ace 3,112]

Von Moltke's not even supposed to be a center, I'm just playing him there because him, Davis, and DiMirio (my three active forwards) are all wingers and I wanted to stack them on a line. The fact that he's above 50% faceoff is surprising

[jRuutu 2,464]

7 hours ago, diamond_ace said:

Von Moltke's not even supposed to be a center, I'm just playing him there because him, Davis, and DiMirio (my three active forwards) are all wingers and I wanted to stack them on a line. The fact that he's above 50% faceoff is surprising

Been shoveling them home at nice rate for sure

[TheLastOlympian07 2,388]

Review

Nice little article about faceoffs, it was a nice tidbit to see who is doing well for the season and who is surprisingly winning them like D_A mentioned his winger is winning above 50% of them.

[Jose Gonzalez 33]

JGRS Review

Information: 10/10 This article is packed completely full of information.

Readability: 6/10 The amount of statistics makes this a harder read then normal. It feels a little scarier when you first get into it.

Roleplay: NA

Total Score: 16/20 Very informative article, however it feels like it could of explained what all of this means with just a little more text, and maybe would of scored a lot higher in the readability category with some explanations.