Dallas Stars Need to Continue Good Start On the Dot

The Stars won just 47.8% of their draws in 2008-2009 and increased it slightly to 48.1% in 2009-2010, their first with Marc Crawford. They hope to continue pushing that number up and have gotten off to a pretty decent start in 2010-2011 as they sit at 50.5% after just two games.

A four day wait and a small sample size of stats to sift through leaves us trying to draw conclusions from only 130 minutes of hockey played this season. So just bear with me as I make unreasonable declarative statements after only 2 games ;)

This is a bit of a dead horse around here but I believe very strongly in the power of the faceoff win and it's something I keep a close eye on as a game unfolds, usually (at home) trying to divine the mysterious formula used to determine the winner of some of the less demonstrative outcomes.

So far this young season...

The Stars have been good at even strength through two games (40 of 68 for 58.8%).

As you can see, Mike Ribeiro is taking the majority of the power play draws through 2 games. Last year Mike Modano led the team in power play faceoffs taken and did well enough, winning 52.3% of them. With Modano's absence, we had hoped to see Brad Richards take more of those draws, but evidence so far suggests that won't be the case as he is the point-man on the PP.

Last year Ribeiro won only 43.9% of his PP draws, yet looks due for an increase in total PP draws taken.

Switching to short-handed draws: This is where the first real problem lies. The Stars have taken 13 short handed faceoffs and won only ONE of them. Toby Petersen is the biggest offender there and needs to be better, but he's faced guys like Zajac and Tavares.

Dallas won 24 of 39 in the opener against New Jersey but only 23 of 54 the next night in Long Island. Keeping the percentage over 50% will be a tougher task against the Wings. In 4 games against Detroit last year the Stars took 189 faceoffs and won only 73 of them. 38.6%. Ouch.