DETROIT | Against the Maple Leafs, only one center was able to win more than half of his faceoffs.
• Also read: Promising duo for the Canadian: Newhook and Kapanen converted the penalties effectively
Jake Evans will get a sticker for his Canada notebook after finishing the match with 58% efficiency (7/12). The rest of us had a difficult evening. Nick Suzuki finished the match with 46% (6/13), Kirby Duch had a very tough night with 21% (3/14), as did Alex Newhook with 22% (2/9). Playing on a line with Newhook, Oliver Kapanen took six faceoffs and won half of them.
“Toronto is one of the best teams in the faceoff circle, so I won't sound the alarm on Game 1 against that team,” Martin St. Louis insisted Thursday morning.
And he's right. Last year, the Maple Leafs ranked second in the NHL with an average of 53.7% in the faceoff circle.
Importance
“This is a big part of the game, but even with all this, we were able to dominate for most of the match,” the head coach said. If we can start with the puck more often, that will definitely help us.
“But even then, you have to play hockey between the face-offs, and I liked the way we performed.”
However, this is a reminder that the Canadian was a middle class student (13 years old).e in the NHL) last year an average of 50.8%.
“These guys are good,” Alex Newhook said of the Leafs’ centers. But at the same time, I think we know that collectively we need to do better. I know I need to be better in circles. But it’s just one match, we need to refocus and understand what went wrong.”
In that regard, during Wednesday night's game against the Maple Leafs, we saw other players being more active on faceoffs, which is what Martin St. Louis wants to see.
“Of course, the central player has a lot of responsibility, but that doesn’t mean others can’t help him.”
