Nikolai Khabibulin - Puckhandler Extraordinaire?

Here’s one more possible correlation to ponder. Here’s how the 8 identified teams fared in shots against per game 2005-06 thru 2008-09, per nhl.com:

SJS: 3rd, 3rd, 2nd, 1st
DAL: 2nd, 2nd, 4th, 5th
NYR: 8th, 6th, 3rd, 15th
NJD: 10th, 8th, 8th, 12th
CHI: 12th, 16th, 14th, 8th

WSH: 30th, 29th, 9th, 13th
ATL: 18th, 25th, 30th, 27th
FLA: 29th, 15th, 29th, 30th

Four of the top 5 in faceoffs have an average finish inside the top 10 in shot prevention (2 in the top 5), with Chicago being the only exception. (Interestingly, this year in Khabibulin’s absence, the Hawks have soared to #1 in the NHL in this category, and it’s not close. They also rank 2nd in the NHL in fewest faceoffs per game, suggesting that whatever it is in Chicago that causes the play to flow more freely, it wasn’t Khabibulin.

Meanwhile, the bottom 3 in faceoffs also rank poorly by the SA metric, with all three averaging in the bottom 10 and 2 of the 3 in the bottom 5.

If this correlation is real I would have expected to find Detroit on the “low faceoffs” list, since they have finished 4th, 1st, 1st, and 2nd in SA. Looking at your chart here, Scott, I see DET was top 8 in fewest faceoffs the first three years before plummeting last year.

Which brings us to possible connections between goaltending and the faceoff numbers. I mildly contest your supposition that a goalie has to be a superior puckhandler, just that he prefers to handle the puck as opposed to a) freezing it or b) staying in his crease and letting his defencemen get involved in more 50/50 (or worse) battles. Obviously it helps if he’s real good at it, but mainly he just needs be aggressive. Exhibit A: Dominik Hasek, who was nobody’s idea of a great puckhandler, but he was a real wanderer who preferred to come out and get the puck the @#$% out of his zone as soon as possible. This was especially true later in his career, notably in Detroit where he seemed to get bored easily and welcomed any chance to get involved in the play. Most of his adventures worked out, even the high-risk ones. We don’t have faceoff numbers for the individual goalies in DET, but we do have SA/60 rankings from the last four years, as well as one constant in Chris Osgood. The difference between Hasek and Osgood was quite pronounced: Hasek faced 2.1 fewer shots per 60 in 2006-07 and 2.5 fewer in 2007-08. Close to 10%! In ’05-06 Manny Legace faced 1.2 fewer shots per 60 than Osgood, while in 2008-09, Ty Conklin faced 0.4 more shots than Osgood. Interestingly, this last was the season where Detroit fell from the leaders in fewest faceoffs.

It’s also interesting to note that the Devils were in the top 2 in the league from 2005-08, but dropped to 9th in the NHL in 2008-09, when Brodeur missed 60% of the season to injury. In 2009-10, they are back to leading the league. (Edit: I see you have now commented on this also, Scott, while I was writing the below.)

Another interesting example is in Florida, where the squad had one exceptional puckhandling goalie in four seasons, Ed Belfour in 2006-07. In that season Florida jumped to the middle of the pack in shot prevention, where they have otherwise finished in the bottom 2 in the NHL. Faceoff data is less clear there, but they did jump from 30th and DFL in Luongo’s last season, to 24th.

One also wonders what effect coaching might have. As an interesting example, the Stars finished 4th, 2nd, 3rd and 1st in faceoffs the past four years; in 2009-10 they currently rank tied for 9th. Turco is still there, but Dave Tippett is gone. Moreover, the Stars have gone from perennial top 5 in shot prevention to a shocking 20th at this point. Meanwhile, Tippett’s new club, the Coyotes, currently ranks 4th in the league in fewest faceoffs after typically being middle of the pack under Wayne Gretzky; their shot prevention, meanwhile has soared from seasons of 22nd, 19th, 23rd, and 23rd, to 8th in the NHL as of this writing.

The Kings are another interesting example, having lingered around the middle of the pack in faceoff stats, before jumping to 4th last year and currently 3rd. Meanwhile, their shot prevention under Terry Murray has undergone a sea change, from 28th in the NHL in 2007-08 to 4th in ’08-09, to 2nd in ’09-10!

I think it’s fair to conclude that all of the foregoing (mostly) supports the notion of a correlation between fewer faceoffs and fewer shots allowed. Or should that read, between fewer shots allowed and fewer faceoffs? Cuz there’s sure to be chicken-and-egg effects, not to mention coaching effects, goaltending effects, and team effects. One can surmise that if only defensive zone faceoffs could be isolated, the correlation would be stronger.

Surely however, we can agree that the team that can successfully keep the play going under control — and keep the clock ticking — is likely to have fewer events in its own zone: fewer faceoffs, fewer shots against, fewer goals against. Whether that translates into fewer events at both ends of the ice (total goals, total shots) is an interesting thought that I daren’t spend any further time on today. :)