How Do Faceoffs Work in Hockey?

Drop the puck between two players, let them fight for it, and you have a faceoff, the way every hockey game starts and restarts. It looks like a coin flip. It is not. A faceoff is a tightly governed 50/50 battle with nine exact spots on the ice, a rulebook all its own, and one quirk that trips up every new fan: when a player cheats, it is often the center who gets thrown out of the circle, not the guy who cheated.

So how do faceoffs work, who takes them, where do they happen, and why does a player get kicked out of the dot? Here is the whole draw, start to finish.

What Is a Faceoff? (Rule 76)

A faceoff is how play begins and resumes in hockey. Under NHL Rule 76, "Face-offs," an official drops the puck on the ice between the sticks of two opposing players, who then battle to win possession for their team. Every period starts with one, and so does play after every whistle.

Who drops the puck depends on the spot. The referee handles the faceoff at center ice to open each period and after every goal. A linesman handles all the others, which is most of the night. The players cannot touch the puck until the official releases it, and the draw only happens at a designated spot, never wherever the puck happened to stop.

The Nine Faceoff Spots

Look down at an NHL sheet and you will count nine red faceoff spots, and they are not all the same.

So five of the nine spots have full circles painted around them, the center dot and the four in the ends near each goalie's crease. The four neutral-zone spots are just dots. The circles matter because they double as restraining lines: only the two players taking the draw may stand inside, and everyone else has to stay out until the puck drops.

Where the Next Faceoff Happens

The spot is never random, and it is never allowed to reward the team that caused the stoppage. The location follows the play.

That last column is the whole logic of faceoff placement. Ice the puck to relieve pressure and you get the draw right back in your own end, pinned in, your tired five stuck on the ice. It is a built-in punishment, and it is why a clean defensive-zone draw can be worth as much as a save.

Who Takes Faceoffs, and How They Win Them

The center almost always takes the draw, which is why faceoffs are a core part of the job if you read up on hockey positions. But the rule does not require a center. Any skater can step in, and teammates often do after a violation. The only player who never takes one is the goalie.

Winning a draw is a craft of small edges. The player on the defending side has to put his stick on the ice first at every spot except center, where the visiting player goes first, so the other guy gets a half-second to read the blade and counter. Hand position, stick angle, body weight, and a quick first move all decide who comes out with the puck, while the wingers crash in to grab anything the center kicks loose. The best at it make a coin flip look like a skill.

"It's my game. It's something I take a lot of pride in. The defensive part is a big part of it." — Patrice Bergeron, Boston Bruins center, Yahoo Puck Daddy (June 2013)

It is no accident that the same names dominate faceoffs season after season, and that they tend to be the centers a coach trusts on the penalty kill and for a defensive-zone draw with a lead to protect.

Why Players Get Kicked Out: The Wrong-Man Twist

Here is the part that confuses everyone. A player gets tossed from the dot for a faceoff violation, and the violation usually is not his. The most common one is encroachment: a teammate slides into the circle, or across the hash marks, before the puck drops. The rule's response is to eject the player taking the faceoff, the center, and order a teammate to come take it instead. Your guy cheated, and you are the one who gets sent off the dot.

Other violations get the center pulled too: moving the stick or body early, refusing to set up square to the spot, or making contact with the opponent before the drop. On a normal faceoff, that first violation simply replaces the center. A second violation by the same team on the same draw escalates to a bench minor for delay of game, a two-minute penalty that can hand the other side a power play, which is why repeat offenders show up in the penalty-minute column.

One important exception keeps the rule honest. After an icing, the first violation is only a warning, not an ejection, because the team that iced the puck is not allowed to change players. Reading the setup, and knowing when you can push the edge, is half the battle.

"You have to go in there willing to compete — that's what it really comes down to." — Sidney Crosby, Pittsburgh Penguins center, Tribune-Review (January 2025)

What Counts as a Good Faceoff Percentage

Because every draw produces one winner and one loser, the entire league averages exactly 50% every year. That is the Tilted Coin in one number. A player who sits right at 50 is perfectly average. Climb from there and the tiers go quickly:

A win rate of 52 to 55% is solidly above average and makes a center useful. Sustain 55 to 60% over a full season and you are among the league leaders. Only a handful of players in history have cleared 60% across thousands of draws. In 2025-26, Claude Giroux led the NHL at about 63%, the kind of mark that wins games at the margins.

The all-time list belongs to the specialists. Yanic Perreault sits first in career faceoff percentage at 62.7%, a number nobody else has touched. Patrice Bergeron, a six-time Selke winner and the gold standard of the modern era, finished at 57.9% over more than 26,000 draws and led the league in faceoff percentage five times. And Sidney Crosby owns the all-time record for faceoff wins, passing Bergeron in January 2025, proof that volume and percentage are two different kinds of great. Perreault tilted the coin highest; Crosby has flipped it the most times.

The Verdict: The Tilted Coin

A faceoff is the most-repeated play in hockey and the most underrated. It looks like luck, a puck dropped between two sticks, but it is governed down to the inch: nine marked spots, a strict order for who sets up first, and a violation rule that will toss your center for a teammate's itchy skate. Most draws really are close to a coin flip. The difference is that a great center, over a full season, quietly tilts the coin toward his bench a few extra times a night. Watch the next defensive-zone draw with a one-goal lead, and you will see why coaches treat 55% like gold.

Sources and Reporting

• Wikipedia: Face-off: NHL Rule 76 mechanics, the nine spots, and placement rules.
• NHL.com Video Rulebook: faceoff violations and the ejection procedure.
• StatMuse: all-time and career faceoff win-percentage leaders.
• Guinness World Records: Yanic Perreault's career faceoff record.
• Yahoo Puck Daddy: Patrice Bergeron on the craft of the draw.
• Tribune-Review: Sidney Crosby on winning faceoffs.