The BUSH Faceoff Experiment: How's It Working?
On 6 February, Burton United Socialist Hockey switched to using faceoffs after every goal, creating the first major rule difference between the two leagues of Burton Hockey; an American League/National League situation of sorts (no, we aren't going to have an all-star game to decide who hosts the next SuperSession). Seven sessions in, who's performing the best? And who needs to work on their puck-drop reflexes? Here's who's on top and who's not, sorted by percentage.
(wins, losses, percentage; minimum twenty faceoffs)
Kyle Grenier 73-45 (61.86%)
Noel Ballard 20-17 (54.05%)
Nathan Robson 15-13 (53.57%)
K.J. O'Connor 18-16 (52.94%)
Lee Orr 36-33 (52.17%)
Justin Gordon 14-14 (50.00%)
Shem Hanna 10-14 (41.67%)
Seamus O'Connor 47-67 (41.23%)
Troy Waldron 10-17 (37.04%)
One thing that jumps out is the volume; Kyle, Seamus, and Lee (and in the two most recent sessions, K.J.) are the players taking the bulk of the faceoffs since the rule implementation. Kyle is definitely tops so far, being the only player over 60%. What is quite interesting is that the next two most successful faceoffs artists are the defence-minded pair of Noel and Nathan. In his last session, Noel was given much more faceoff time and delivered with 13 wins on 20 faceoffs. Nathan was only 2-for-10 in the first two sessions with the rule, but has gone 13-for-18 since. Lee had a bad start (6-for-21), but has been 30-for-48 since. Seamus, on the other hand, probably shouldn't be taking so many; his best session so far has only been 10-for-20. Among those with fewer than twenty faceoffs, Graeme Orr stands out at 7-for-9. It will be interesting to see if he can hold onto that ratio.
(wins, losses, percentage; fewer than twenty faceoffs)
Graeme Orr 7-2 (77.78%)
Stevie Fergusson 5-6 (45.56%)
Nick Sundstrom 2-3 (40.00%)
Andrew Watson 3-5 (37.50%)
Tyson Klein 1-3 (25.00%)
Jesse Gimbel 0-1 (0.00%)
