What is Faceoffs (taken)?

The number of times a player takes a draw at the center dot to start or restart play.

What this tells us

When a player takes the faceoff, he's putting the puck into play for his team. Some players specialize in faceoffs—centers especially—and their win rate on these draws affects whether their team gains possession to start a shift. A player who takes many faceoffs is usually a center or plays in high-leverage situations (power plays, penalty kills, overtime).

Limitations

Faceoff count alone doesn't tell you whether a player won or lost the draw. That's why we also show faceoff win percentage (FO%), which measures how often a player actually wins possession. A player can take 600 draws a season but win only 45% of them—the raw count hides that performance gap.

Example

A typical third- or fourth-line center might take 400–500 faceoffs per season. A top-line center in a high-possession team could take 1,000+. Forwards who rarely touch the dot—wingers on deeper lines, defensemen—might take fewer than 100 per season.