My yearly dive into how the New Jersey Devils did on faceoffs this past season, and who does it well on the team.
Welcome to the annual faceoff post! Each year, I like to look at how the New Jersey Devils did in the faceoff department, see who is good at the dot for the team, and who is improving or needs to put in more work. Faceoffs are obviously not the most important part of the game, not even close, but who gains initial possession after a faceoff can have considerable consequences now and then, so faceoffs should not be entirely dismissed either.
This past season, things took a turn in the faceoff department once Michael McLeod left to deal with his legal troubles. McLeod has been one of the best faceoff men in the entire NHL for the last several seasons, and it was one of the bigger reasons to re-sign him to that one-year, $1.4 million deal last offseason. He was a consistent 60%+ faceoff win percentage guy and was often used in key situations in the defensive zone or even during overtime, where he would win a draw and then immediately retreat to the bench for someone else.
With McLeod on the team, the Devils were a very strong faceoff team early in the season, one of the best if not the best. Once he left, they obviously took a hit in this department considering they lost the best faceoff guy in the league. However, the Devils were still in a good place here, as several other guys still had over a 50% win percentage, and a couple were over 55%. That is a significant improvement in terms of depth faceoff ability as compared to years past when I did these posts. Take a look at the chart of every Devil who took at least 100 faceoffs in the regular season, thanks to Natural Stat Trick.
First off, McLeod’s 65.13% faceoff win percentage was the best in the league for anyone who took more than 35 attempts, and McLeod had 651 attempts. The next best faceoff man in the league was Jeff Carter at 62.62%, basically 2.5% lower than McLeod, and Carter only had 420 attempts, exactly 231 fewer attempts than McLeod. That just goes to show how dominant he was in the faceoff circle. No one was better, and it wasn’t close.
Beyond McLeod, we need to give some serious love to Nico Hischier as well. The man took 1,387 draws during the season and won 56.6% of them. That is very, very good considering the sheer volume of attempts he had. Hischier had the 11th most faceoff wins in the NHL during the regular season, so he was asked to take a ton of attempts and did well with them. Of all players in the NHL with at least 100 faceoff attempts, he ranked 16th in terms of win%, and again, he took well over 1,300 attempts, not just the minimum. Yes, Chris Tierney had a higher win%, but he also did not even take 200 attempts, so while we should applaud Tierney for doing well with his attempts, Nico’s slightly lower percentage is still more impressive.
The other high-volume faceoff man for the team was Erik Haula, and he was no slouch either. Haula’s 54.77% is quite strong and ranked him 33rd in the NHL for anyone with at least 100 attempts. And he did it with 891 attempts, again a pretty high number. The Devils relied on him regularly to take draws, and he won nearly 55% of them which is statistically significant over 900 attempts. For the Devils to have three guys who combined for over 2,900 faceoff attempts and averaged well over a 57% win rate when averaged together, that is dominance in the faceoff circle. I don’t want to go through every other team to see how they compare, but I can’t imagine the Devils not being one of the top 3 faceoff teams in the NHL this past season thanks to these three guys, four if you want to add Tierney’s 194 attempts as well.
Beyond them, however, the talent for faceoffs really dies off. Tomas Nosek was fine, I don’t want to lump him with those who were in the red. He did have a positive 51.93% win rate across 233 attempts, so he was definitely acceptable. But the rest were poor. The Devils clearly stopped using Jack Hughes on faceoffs this year, finally giving up on him ever getting better here. Jack Hughes is a fantastic hockey player, one of the best in the NHL, but he has never been good at faceoffs since he came into the league. His 37.22% win rate this past season was about normal for him, despite how obviously poor that is for someone taking over 300 draws. It is much better for the Devils to have someone else on his line who is competent with faceoffs, and they should definitely consider this as they make lines for next year.
The last player to really discuss is Dawson Mercer, who has also been not so great at faceoffs since coming to the Devils, although he has not been as bad as Jack, and of course he has not been here as long either. He can play on the wing, so he does not need to be a faceoff man for this team long term, but if he can work on this area of his came and at least get to 50% on average, it would open up options for different lines where he can take faceoffs regularly.
In the end, the Devils were a fantastic faceoff team overall in 2023-24. With the combined trio of McLeod, Hischier, and Haula, NJ was arguably the best faceoff team in the league. There was a severe drop-off at the bottom end, with guys like Mercer and Hughes who are quite poor, but with the overwhelming number of draws going to one of those top three guys, the Devils won way more than they lost in this department. Next year might be different, as who knows what will happen with McLeod, and they will drop off for sure without him. But as long as they have Hischier and Haula taking a ton of draws, which is likely next year once again, they will still be pretty good here, if not the best.