The New Jersey Devils Are Especially Good In This Area Of Play

The New Jersey Devils are on a torrid pace right now. After ten straight wins, they are 13-3-0 which is one of the best records in the entire National Hockey League. There are a lot of reasons for this as there always are whenever a team goes on a run like this.

For the Devils, they have been absolutely incredible in the faceoff department. Jack Hughes still has a long way to go in the dot but there are plenty of other centers on the team that are elite faceoff men at this point in their careers.

Michael McLeod and Erik Haula haven’t provided a lot of offense yet but they have been winning draws at an amazing pace. McLeod is seventh in the NHL with a 60.54 win percentage and Haula is right behind him in eighth at 60.48 percent.

Having two guys in the top ten is really nice as they have the puck to start on a lot of their plays. The cool thing is that Nico Hischier isn’t far behind them in 13th place at 58.46 percent. He provides a lot more offense too which says a lot about how great of an all-around player he is.

The New Jersey Devils have been amazing at winning faceoffs this year.

Faceoff winning percentage is a polarizing stat because of the fact that some people don’t value it that much. It certainly isn’t the end-all-be-all but starting off with the puck certainly is nice. They have won a lot of games so it seems to be helping at least a little bit.

The cool thing is that the Devils have other players on the ice that are able to help the centers take advantage of these faceoff wins. They are a fast and skilled team so it is always better when they have the puck on their sticks.

When they are up one or down one late in the game, there are plenty of players that they can send out there that they are confident in to win the draw.

In the case of Hischier, it helps even more that he isn’t a depth scorer. He is an elite face-off man that just so happens to be a point-per-game player.

This team has a lot going for it and this statistic is one of them. As a whole, they are third in the league with a faceoff winning percentage of 54.3 percent.

They only trail the Chicago Blackhawks and Boston Bruins in this area. Chicago is bad but they have Jonathan Toews who leads the league in faceoff winning percentage and Max Domi who is in 6th. They are the only team besides the Devils with two top-ten faceoff men.

As for Boston, they have Patrice Bergeron who is second in the league. Tomas Nosek is in 19th as well so it makes sense how they are right there with the Devils as a team in the dot. They are also right there with the Devils in the standings.

This is something that we should keep an eye on all season long. If Jack Hughes can develop his ability to win more draws, the team’s total will go way up. There are a lot of other goals that can be scored if they continue this faceoff-winning pace.