First off, I get that many people feel that faceoffs are overrated and are not something significant to look at when discussing a team’s statistics. Analytics have produced a myriad of other stats that provide us a better indicator of how a team played on the ice. In comparison, faceoffs tell us very little.
However, I also don’t see a need to totally ignore faceoffs either. I wouldn’t build my forwards around faceoff ability, but there can be no denying that every once and a while, a faceoff win or loss proves huge in the course of a game.