Hockey Faceoff Rules: Who Puts a Stick Down First and Why
Hockey faceoff rules explained from the NHL rulebook: which center puts his stick down first, where everyone stands, the violations and where the puck drops.
By CricketTaken EditorialPublished NHL Rules24 min read
- Faceoff dots on an NHL rink
- 9
- Seconds to line up after the whistle
- 5
- Radius of a faceoff circle
- 15 feet
- Rulebook citation
- Rule 76
The linesperson blows a whistle before he drops the puck, and that whistle starts a count. Under NHL Rule 76.3 both teams then have "no more than five (5) seconds to line up" for the faceoff. In that time ten players have to find their marks, and two of them have to put their sticks on the ice in a set order.
The order is fixed by Rule 76.4. At center ice the visiting team's center puts his stick down first. At the other eight dots the player from the defending team goes first, "followed immediately by the attacking player." Going first is the short straw. The second man sees where his opponent's blade is and is the last one moving when the puck falls. Everything else is about position: the two centers square to the ends of the rink with their blades in the white part of the dot, everyone else outside the circle and behind the hash marks. Break any of it and the offending team's center is waved out of the draw. Do it twice on one faceoff and the team takes a two-minute bench minor.
What a faceoff is, and how many times a game it happens
Hockey has no throw-in, no inbounds pass and no kickoff. Every restart is the same contested drop. The rulebook's definition is one sentence: a faceoff is "the action of the Referee or Linesperson in dropping the puck between the sticks of two opposing players to start or resume play."
One happens at the start of each period, after each goal and after every whistle in between. Across an NHL game that comes to somewhere around sixty, which makes it the most repeated set piece in the sport by a wide margin.
- 9Faceoff spots on the rink
- 5Seconds allowed to line up
- 15Feet other players must stay back
- 2Violations by one team that bring a bench minor
Figures from Rules 1.9 and 76 of the NHL rulebook. The 15 feet is both the radius of a faceoff circle and the distance other players must keep from the two centers.
Who drops it, and when the faceoff begins
Rule 32.2 gives the job to the linespersons "at all times except at the start of each period," when a referee does it. In practice the opening draw of each period is the only one a referee handles.
A faceoff has a formal beginning, and it comes well before the drop. It "begins when the official indicates the location of the face-off and the officials and players take their appropriate positions," and ends "when the puck has been legally dropped." That window matters, because it is the period during which a violation can be called and inside which no further substitution is allowed.
The sequence before the puck falls
The visiting team puts its five skaters out first. The home coach then gets to respond, which is the advantage described in our guide to the last change and line matching. When the referee drops his arm, changes are over. The linesperson blows his whistle, and the five seconds start.
In the last two minutes of regulation and throughout overtime, the rulebook relaxes the count: the whistle still blows, but "the five (5) second time limit will not be enforced." The league would sooner have a fair draw than a fast one when the game is on the line.
One flat prohibition sits in the definition. "A goalkeeper may not participate in a face-off."
The nine faceoff dots and the logic that picks one
"All face-offs must be conducted on one of the nine (9) face-off spots located on the rink." Rule 76.2 allows no exceptions, and a later sentence repeats the point: no faceoff is to be made "anywhere other than at a face-off spot." The puck is not dropped where play stopped. It is carried to a dot.
| Location | Number | How it is marked |
|---|---|---|
| Center ice | 1 | Blue spot 12 inches across, inside a blue circle of 15-foot radius |
| Neutral zone, five feet outside each blue line | 4 | Red spot two feet across, no circle |
| End zones, one on either side of each goal | 4 | Red spot two feet across, inside a red circle of 15-foot radius with hash marks |
| Whole rink | 9 | Every faceoff is held on one of them |
The end-zone dots sit 20 feet out from the goal line and 22 feet to either side of the line running between the two nets, so the pair in each zone are 44 feet apart. The four neutral-zone dots are the same 44 feet apart. Each red dot has a band of white across its top and bottom, a detail that will matter in a moment. The rest of the painted surface is described in our guide to NHL rink dimensions and markings.
Three principles for choosing the dot
The rulebook lists a great many specific stoppages, and nearly all of them reduce to three ideas.
The first is proximity. When play stops for a reason nobody is to blame for, the puck goes to the nearest dot in the zone where it was last played. A puck frozen along the boards in a corner is dropped on the end-zone dot on that side.
The second is fault. When one team caused the stoppage by breaking a rule, the dot is chosen to hurt that team. Where two violations happened at once, Rule 76.2 calls for "the spot that provides the least amount of territorial advantage to the offending team."
The third is a tiebreaker in favor of the home side. For a blameless stoppage in the neutral zone, if it is unclear which of the four dots is nearest, the one chosen is "the spot that gives the home team the greatest territorial advantage." It is a tiny edge, and it is written down.
Who puts a stick down first under hockey faceoff rules
This is the sentence most people come looking for. "At the eight face-off spots (excluding center ice face-off spot), the defending player shall place his stick within the designated white area first followed immediately by the attacking player. When the face-off is conducted at the center ice face-off spot, the visiting player shall place his stick on the ice first."
| Where the faceoff is | Stick down first | Stick down second |
|---|---|---|
| Center ice | Visiting team's center | Home team's center |
| End-zone dot | Center of the team defending that zone | Center of the attacking team |
| Neutral-zone dot | Center of the team whose blue line the dot sits beside | His opponent |
| Any dot, after the first player refuses or delays | The player is replaced, or the puck is dropped anyway | Not applicable |
Every dot except the one at center lies in somebody's half of the rink, so there is always a defending player. On a neutral-zone dot just outside Boston's blue line, the Boston center is the defender and goes first.
Why going first is a handicap
A center who has to commit his blade to the ice has shown his hand. His opponent can see the angle of the stick and whether the lower hand is turned over for a backhand pull, and can set his own blade to counter. More important, the second man is still in motion. He arrives a beat later and can time his stick to reach the ice just as the linesperson releases the puck, which makes his first movement his winning one. The first man has to start from a standstill.
The margin is small. Across sixty draws a night it is not nothing.
What changed in 2015
Until the 2015-16 season the rule was simpler: the visiting player put his stick down first everywhere on the ice. The home team got the edge on every draw.
The league rewrote it to favor offense. By making the defending center commit first, the rule tilts end-zone faceoffs slightly toward the attacking team, wherever the game is being played. The home team kept its advantage at center ice only. A visiting team on the attack now has the better of the procedure, which was never true before.
Other rulebooks have not always matched the NHL here. Amateur codes in the United States have at times asked the attacking center to go first, the reverse of the professional order, so a youth or college player should check the book his own league plays under.
Where the two centers must stand
Squarely. Rule 76.4 uses the word twice. The players facing off "will stand squarely facing their opponent's end of the rink approximately one stick length apart with the blade of their sticks on the ice."
Square means shoulders and hips parallel to the goal line, facing straight down the rink. A center who turns his body sideways can sweep the puck back with his whole frame and block his opponent with his hip at the same instant, and the rule exists to stop exactly that.
The markings at the end-zone dots
Beside each of the four end-zone dots the ice is painted with a pair of L-shaped lines on each side. Rule 1.9 specifies them: two lines "parallel with the side boards" four feet long and 18 inches apart, each joined to a shorter line running parallel to the end boards. They form a small box for each center's skates.
The rulebook's violation list spells out how to use them. The center "must place his feet on either side of the restraining lines that are parallel to the side boards (contact with the lines is permissible), and the toe of the blade of his skates must not cross over the restraining lines that are perpendicular to the side boards as he approaches the face-off spot."
In plain terms: one skate on each side of the long line, and toes behind the short one. The long line keeps him square. The short one keeps him back from the dot, so that he cannot crowd over the puck.
The blade in the white
Then the stick. The blade goes "on the ice, within the designated white area" of the dot, and the rulebook adds that at least the toe of the blade must be in the white and "must remain there until the puck is dropped." The red band across the middle of the dot is the linesperson's target. The white at each end is where the sticks wait.
A center who hovers his stick above the ice, or sets it down in the red, or lifts it early, has not complied.
The enforcement swing of 2017
For years these lines were treated as suggestions. Centers set their skates wherever gave them leverage, and linespersons tossed out only the worst offenders. Before the 2017-18 season the league told officials to enforce the wording as written, and the preseason produced a flood of bench minors for repeat violations. Players complained loudly. Within a few weeks they had adjusted, and the stance at an NHL faceoff has been noticeably more upright and more uniform since.
Where everyone else must stand
"No other player shall be allowed to enter the face-off circle or come within fifteen feet (15') of the players facing-off. All players must stand on-side on all face-offs."
That is the general rule in Rule 76.6. The circles painted at center ice and in the end zones have a 15-foot radius, so they mark the distance. At the four neutral-zone dots no circle is painted, and the same 15 feet applies by eye.
Skates out, sticks allowed in
The detail that most people get wrong is about sticks. Players around the circle "must keep both skates outside the face-off circle," with contact with the line permitted. Their sticks are another matter: "A player's stick may be inside the face-off circle provided there is no physical contact with his opponent or his opponent's stick."
So a winger may reach his blade well into the circle before the drop, ready to pounce on a loose puck. He may not put a skate in, and he may not touch the man beside him.
The hash marks
On the outer edge of each end-zone circle, on both sides, are two short red lines parallel to the goal line. They are two feet long and five feet seven inches apart. These are the hash marks, and wingers line up along them, each on his own side.
Rule 76.6 says the other players "must position their bodies on their own side of the restraining lines." A skate may touch the line but not cross it. Again the stick is allowed into the gap between the marks so long as it touches nobody.
The gap used to be three feet. The league widened it to five feet seven inches for the 2014-15 season, matching the international standard, to put more space between opposing wingers and reduce the shoving that used to precede every draw.
Attackers set first
One procedural rule decides the jockeying. "Players on the attacking team (exclusive of the center) must establish their position first and then the defending team may counter and hold its position until the puck is dropped."
The attacking wingers and defensemen choose their spots. The defenders then match up. If an attacker shifts to a new position after the defense has countered, and the defending center steps back to rearrange his teammates, the violation is charged to the attacking team. A team gets one look at its opponent's alignment and no more.
A team that is slow getting to the dot and has players standing in an offside position gets a single warning for the game, delivered to its coach as well. After that, the same offense is a bench minor for delay.
Why a center gets thrown out of the circle
Because his team broke one of the rules above, and the rulebook makes the center pay for all of them.
| Violation | Who commits it | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Not positioned behind the markings, or not square | The center | That center is replaced |
| Stick not placed on the ice in the white area, or lifted early | The center | That center is replaced |
| Moving before the drop | The center | Faceoff is redone; counts as a violation |
| A skate into the circle before the drop | A winger or defenseman | His team's center is replaced |
| A skate across the hash marks before the drop | A winger or defenseman | His team's center is replaced |
| Physical contact with an opponent before the drop | Any player | That team's center is replaced |
| Lining up offside | Any player | That team's center is replaced |
That last column is the odd part. A winger who creeps over the hash mark is not sent anywhere. His center is. Rule 76.6: "the offending team's player taking the face-off shall be ejected from the face-off circle."
The reasoning is practical. Removing the encroaching winger would change nothing, since another player would simply take his spot. Removing the center costs the team its best faceoff man and puts a winger on the dot against a specialist.
Any of the four officials on the ice may call a violation, and the linesperson has the offending center "replaced immediately prior to dropping the puck." The replacement may be "any teammate then on the ice." Usually the nearest winger steps in and the ejected center slides out to the wing.
Why teams risk it
Coaches accept a certain number of ejections as a cost of doing business. A center who cheats forward by two inches wins more draws than one who does not, and the first violation costs only a substitution.
That is why, for an important defensive-zone draw late in a game, a coach will often put two natural centers on the ice together. If the first is waved out, the second takes the faceoff, and the team has lost nothing. The duties that otherwise separate the middle man from his wingers are set out in our guide to center, wing, defense and goalie.
If the official is the one at fault, with a puck that bounces or lands in one player's skates, the faceoff is simply done again and nobody is replaced.
The second violation on the same faceoff: a bench minor
Tolerance runs out fast. Under Rule 76.7, a team that commits two violations during the same faceoff "shall be penalized with a bench minor penalty." The public address announcer reads it as a "Bench Minor Penalty for Delay of Game - Face-off Violation," and the offending team plays shorthanded for two minutes.
- WhistleThe linesperson signals that both teams have five seconds to line up.
- SetThe defending center puts his blade in the white of the dot, followed at once by the attacking center. At center ice the visitor goes first.
- First violationA center is out of position, or a teammate encroaches. The linesperson waves that team's center out.
- ReplacementA teammate already on the ice takes the draw. He must set up quickly or risk a second call.
- Second violationThe same team offends again before the puck is dropped.
- PenaltyThe referee assesses a bench minor for delay of game, and the faceoff becomes the start of a power play.
The sequence under Rules 76.3, 76.4 and 76.7 of the NHL rulebook. After an icing the first violation by either team brings a warning in place of the ejection.
The count is per team and per faceoff. One violation by each side is two ejected centers and no penalty. Once the puck is legally dropped, the slate is clean for the next draw.
The replacement is on thin ice from the moment he arrives. The rulebook warns that he "must come into position quickly or risk having the puck dropped by the Linesperson without the player being set, or ejected from the face-off by the Linesperson resulting in a bench minor penalty."
The icing exception
After an icing, the rules change. The team that iced the puck is stuck with the tired players who were on the ice, and for years those teams bought rest by having their center deliberately thrown out. Ten seconds of shuffling was worth a penalty-free breather.
The league shut that down. Following an icing, "the first face-off violation by either team will not result in the center being removed." He is warned and stays where he is. No shuffle, no delay. "Any subsequent violation by that team will result in a bench minor penalty."
Two related doors are closed as well. Rule 87 says "no time-out shall be granted following a face-off violation," and none is granted to the defensive team following an icing.
Faceoff location after icing, offside, a penalty and a puck out of play
Where the puck is dropped is often worth more than who wins the draw. An offensive-zone faceoff is a scoring chance in waiting. A neutral-zone faceoff is a reset.
| Why play stopped | Where the puck is dropped |
|---|---|
| A goal, or the start of a period | Center ice |
| Icing | An end-zone dot in the zone of the team that iced it; the attacking team picks the side |
| Offside, puck carried over the blue line | The neutral-zone dot just outside that blue line |
| Offside on a pass or a shot into the zone | The nearest dot in the zone the pass or shot came from |
| Intentional offside | An end-zone dot in the offending team's own zone |
| A penalty that puts one team on the power play | An end-zone dot in the penalized team's zone |
| Puck shot or deflected out of play | The nearest dot in the zone it was shot from, or where it deflected out |
| Attacking team high-sticks or gloves the puck in the attacking zone | A neutral-zone dot outside that zone |
| Goalie freezes the puck | An end-zone dot beside him |
The reasoning behind the first two offside rows, and behind icing itself, is in our explainer on icing and offside and the sense behind them.
Why so many of them help the attacking team
It is deliberate. Over the past two decades the league has moved one faceoff after another into the offensive zone, on the theory that goals come from zone time.
The penalty rule is the clearest case. When a team is penalized, the faceoff goes to its end "at one of the two face-off spots in the offending team's end zone," wherever on the ice the foul happened. A trip at the far blue line still starts the power play 20 feet from the penalized team's net. The rulebook gives three exceptions: a penalty assessed after a goal, one assessed at the end or start of a period, and the case where attacking players crowd in past the circles during a scrum.
The puck out of play is another. If an attacker's shot deflects off a defender and over the glass, the faceoff stays in the attacking zone. A defender who clears the puck directly over the glass from his own end fares worse, since he takes a minor as well, the call explained in our guide to the puck over glass penalty. A puck that flies out directly off the draw itself is nobody's fault: the faceoff is repeated at the same dot and no penalty is given.
When the attackers lose the zone
The offense forfeits its position only by its own violation. A stoppage for playing the puck with a stick above the legal height, or for an illegal glove pass, by the attacking team inside the attacking zone moves the draw out to the neutral zone. Those two calls are covered in our guides to the high-stick puck rule and when batting the puck with a hand is legal.
So does bad behavior. If the attacking team's point men, or anyone coming off its bench, skate in "beyond the outer edge of the end zone face-off circle during an altercation, gathering or 'scrum,'" the faceoff is moved out to the neutral zone. Defensemen are taught to stay at the blue line when a shoving match breaks out in front of the net for precisely this reason.
The choice of dot: how teams pick a side
Since the 2019-20 season the attacking team has had a say. Rule 81.2: "Following an icing, the attacking team will have the choice of which end zone dot the face-off will take place." Rule 76.2 gives the same choice to "the team awarded the power-play" for the draw that starts it. The choice also follows two smaller stoppages, when a goalie freezes a puck shot in from beyond the center red line and when a defender accidentally knocks his own net off.
Before 2019 the side followed the puck, and neither bench had a say. Now a coach holds up a hand and points.
Handedness
The first thing he weighs is which way his center shoots. Most centers are stronger pulling the puck on the backhand, drawing it back and toward their stick side. A left-shot center generally prefers the dot on his left as he faces up ice, where that pull sends the puck toward the boards and his waiting defenseman. On the other dot the same motion sends it toward the middle of the ice.
Players call the preferred dot the strong side. A power play with a left-shot center will usually take the left dot. A team with one center of each hand on the ice can pick either and send out whichever man fits.
The shooter
The second consideration is where the puck is going after it is won. A power play built around a right-shot one-timer from the left circle wants the puck there within two passes, and the choice of dot determines which defenseman receives the draw and how far the puck has to travel. The shapes those units use are described in our explainer on what a power play is trying to do.
The defending team can do very little about it. After an icing it cannot even change its players. Its only answer is a center who can win on his weak side, which is one reason coaches value a faceoff man of the opposite hand to their top center.
What the puck can be played with off the draw
The stick, in almost every case. But the rulebook is more permissive about feet than most fans expect and stricter about hands.
The skate
"Kicking the puck shall be permitted in all zones." Rule 49.2 makes no exception for faceoffs. A center may tie up his opponent's stick and kick the puck back to a defenseman, and many do it by design. What a kick can never do is score: a puck propelled into the net by a distinct kicking motion is no goal, on a faceoff or at any other time, as our guide to the kicked puck rule explains.
The hand
Here the faceoff has its own rule. A player taking the draw who "attempts to win the face-off by batting the puck with their hand" is given a minor penalty, announced as delay of game for a faceoff violation.
The restriction lasts a little beyond the drop. Under Rule 76.5 the two centers "are not permitted to play the puck with their hand" until "a third player (from either team) has at least touched the puck." Once the draw is complete and a winner is clear, the ordinary hand pass rule takes over.
The rule was written to stop a specific trick. A center losing the draw would drop to a knee and swipe the puck back with his glove, which in the defending zone was perfectly legal as a hand pass. The league decided a faceoff should be won with a stick or a skate.
Body contact
Before the drop, none. "Any physical contact with an opponent prior to the puck being dropped" is a violation. After it, the two centers may lean, shove and tie each other up within the ordinary limits on interference, and the collision of shoulders a split second after the puck lands is as much a part of the draw as the stickwork.
How draws are actually won
A clean win, with the puck swept straight back to a defenseman, is less common than the statistics suggest. A large share of faceoffs produce a loose puck within a few feet of the dot and a short fight for it.
The backhand pull. The standard technique. The center turns his lower hand over on the shaft, a reverse grip that gives his wrist more strength on the pull, and draws the blade back and across his body as the puck lands. Turning the hand over is the tell an opponent looks for, and it is one more reason nobody wants to set first.
The forehand sweep. The same motion in the other direction, pulling the puck to the forehand side. It is weaker for most players and is used on the off dot or to surprise an opponent who is sitting on the backhand.
The tie-up. Sometimes the aim is to stop the other man winning. The center ignores the puck, jams his stick under his opponent's and drives his body forward over the dot. The puck sits there. He kicks it back, or a winger arrives to collect it.
Going forward. In the offensive zone a center may push the puck ahead through his opponent's skates and follow it, or shoot directly off the drop if the goalie is cheating toward a pass.
The wingers decide the close ones
On a tied-up draw, the first winger to the puck wins the faceoff for his center. That is why wingers reach their sticks into the circle beforehand and why the hash-mark rules are policed so closely. A center with quick wingers will show a better percentage than he has earned. One with slow wingers can win his own battle and still be credited with a loss.
Good faceoff men also study linespersons. Officials differ in how they hold the puck and how they release it, and a center who has read the habit can begin his motion a fraction sooner.
Faceoff percentage: how a win is counted and what it is worth
The NHL has recorded faceoff wins and losses for every player since the 1997-98 season. The scorer credits the win to the center whose team comes away with possession. On a clean draw that is obvious. On a scrum it is a judgment, which makes the statistic a little softer than it looks.
Most regular centers finish a season somewhere between 45 and 55 percent. The best in any year are close to 60. Nobody sustains much more, because the man across the dot is a professional too.
The arithmetic of a few points
Consider a first-line center who takes 1,500 faceoffs in a season, a heavy but ordinary workload. Breaking even means 750 wins.
A 55 percent man, who would rank among the league's better faceoff centers, wins 75 more draws over the season than an average one. That is less than one extra possession per game.
Public studies of league play-by-play data have tried to price those possessions, and the estimates cluster in the region of 75 additional faceoff wins for one goal of difference on the scoreboard. The exact figure varies with the method. On any version of it, the gap between a good faceoff center and an ordinary one is worth a goal or two over a full season. Teams pay for it anyway.
Where it does matter
The average hides the draws that count. A defensive-zone faceoff with the goalie pulled and thirty seconds left is not an average faceoff. A draw at the start of a penalty kill is worth much more than its share too: a win means a clear down the ice and twenty seconds off the clock, and a loss means the power play is set up at once.
Coaches manage accordingly. The specialist with the high percentage takes the draws in his own end, on the penalty kill and in the final minute, and the scorer who wins 47 percent starts his shifts in the offensive zone where a loss costs less. Because of that sorting, raw percentages are not a fair comparison between players given different jobs.
Our judgment is that faceoff percentage is one of the more overrated numbers in the sport when taken across a season and one of the more useful when taken a single draw at a time. What happens in the minute after the puck is won is measured better by shot-attempt counts, the subject of our guide to Corsi and what it shows. More of the rulebook is covered on our ice hockey pages.