Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Simple Solution To Go From a Horrible Faceoff Team To an Alright One


Move Cogliano to wing! Cogliano has been brutal in the dot, and even though Gagner is an underwhelming faceoff man at 42%, he looks like a faceoff whiz compared to Cogliano. Here's a look at the potential in house options at center and their recent faceoff statistics minus proven faceoff man Shawn Horcoff.

Sam Gagner

'07-08 FOW 125 FOL 174 FO% 41.8
Faceoffs Per Game 3.79

'08-09 FOW 290 FOL 400 FO% 42
Faceoffs Per Game 9.08

Andrew Cogliano

'07-08 FOW 214 FOL 328 FO% 39.5
Faceoffs Per Game 6.61

'08-09 FOW 261 FOL 441 FO% 37.2
Faceoffs Per Game 8.56

Marc Pouliot

'06-07 FOW 172 FOL 181 FO% 48.7
Faceoffs Per Game 7.67

'07-08 FOW 21 FOL 23 FO% 47.7
Faceoffs Per Game 1.83

'08-09 FOW 102 FOL 109 FO% 48.3
Faceoffs Per Game 3.35

Gilbert Brule
'06-07 FOW 123 FOL 145 FO% 45.9
Faceoffs Per Game 3.44

'07-08 FOW 40 FOL 38 FO% 51.3
Faceoffs Per Game 1.28

Patrick O'Sullivan
'06-07 FOW 59 FOL 68 FO% 46.5
Faceoffs Per Game 2.89

'07-08 FOW 203 FOL 258 FO% 44
Faceoffs Per Game 5.62

'08-09 FOW 41 FOL 58 FO% 41.4
Faceoffs Per Game 1.22


While the Oilers may not have a Jarret Stoll type behind Shawn Horcoff in terms of faceoff prowess, they have no less than four, count 'em FOUR better faceoff options than Andrew Cogliano. For reasons unknown Craig Mactavish would rather have Sam Gagner and Andrew Cogliano taking draws ahead of Marc Pouliot. Pouliot has not been given enough of an opportunity to prove that he can be a solid 50% or better faceoff man.

Pouliot has the size and has been a good faceoff man in every league that he has played in until he hit the best league in the world. And even then he is still a respectable faceoff man. Gilbert Brule won't do any worse than Cogliano and I expect him to be at least in the 45% range. However we will lack a second left handed faceoff man unless..... We get O'Sullivan or possibly even Schremp to take some draws. Gagner hopefully will get into the respectable range of mid to high 40's percentage but if not, he should be the ONLY weak link. We may not be one of the best faceoff teams, we should still be much better just because Cogs is chased from the dot and we'll have superior faceoff men replacing him.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Penner has also put up some respectable faceoff numbers in the past, but for whatever reason MacT wouldn't use him to take draws.

A large part of the faceoff problem last year can be attributed to incompetent coaching. Pisani hadn't taken a draw since he played for the St. Albert Saints in the AJHL, yet MacT threw him out there with about 2 weeks of prep time.

Boneheaded move.

Bryanbryoil said...

Agreed. Pisani at center, Cogs taking a ton of draws over better options, Smid at LW, Reddox on Horcoff's wing, it was ugly to say the least. Pouliot and Brule or even Schremp could provide a better faceoff option than good old Pisani or Cogs.