Through the New York Islanders first nine games of the 2018-19 regular season, Mathew Barzal is winning just 41.12 percent of his faceoffs. That sounds quite bad. And it is. Out of the top 100 players in terms of faceoff win percentages, Mathew Barzal ranks 97th.
This isn’t out of the ordinary for Barzal, last season he won an average of 42.57 percent of his faceoffs. And he was still able to be a dominant player. So why is this an issue now?
Losing that many draws might not be an issue if the player and the team are still generating a good amount of possession.