Quote:
Originally Posted by sa226
Some semblance of faceoff prowess would vault Backlund into a vastly superior level of 3rd line center. He is so good positionally that it kind of makes up for it. But when you're losing faceoffs all of the time, you're always chasing..
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That's not true. Most faceoffs are scramble draws anyways, not clean wins. Winning races compensates just fine for minor differences in faceoff percentages.
The last three seasons (2013-14 to Present), Giordano-Backlund-Brodie have a Corsi-Against of 42.70 and a CF% of 58.4% (42.3% offensive zone starts / 651:57 minutes together). And yes, they outscore the opposition in goals by a proportional amount.
To put that into some perspective, Toews, who is one of the best faceoff guys in the world, along with Keith and Hjalmarsson have a corsi-against of 53.24 and a CF% of 53.3% (48.7% offensive zone starts / 371:55 minutes together).
It's not quite on the level of Doughty-Kopitar-Muzzin who have a Corsi-Against of 41.31 and a CF% of 60.3% (56.0% offensive zone starts / 731:57 minutes together) but I'd say it's not that far off either. Kopitar is worse at faceoffs than Toews BTW.
The key thing to note though? Those two guys are #1 Centers. If we had a shut-down #1C on the level of those two (Auston Matthews?), we don't need Backlund to take on that high-level checking role. He could feast on a secondary checking role.
Backlund is a more effective centerman than the likes of Stoll that get paraded for their faceoff prowess. It's a lot more important to have the puck eventually than to win it on faceoffs. It's a myth that being poor at faceoffs means Backlund is always stuck chasing the play. At least at 5 on 5.
Penalty Killing? Why not put Backlund out there with Jooris? Then you have a guy on either side who can take faceoffs on his strong side only. A lot better idea than scratching Jooris so Brandon Bollig can "warn" the opponent not to score 5 goals.