Blackhawks' Vermette tops in faceoffs

One goal and 4 assists. In 27 games.

Those are the offensive numbers Antoine Vermette has produced for the Blackhawks since arriving from Arizona at the trade deadline.

It goes without saying he would love those stats to improve, but Vermette's game isn't just about goals and assists. The veteran center always has taken great pride in his ability to win faceoffs and, after a rocky end to the regular season, he has managed to ramp up that part of his game in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Since being reinserted into the lineup after coach Joel Quenneville made him a healthy scratch for Games 1 and 2 against Nashville, Vermette has won 64.4 percent of his faceoffs, including 71 percent in the Minnesota series. That's 16 percentage points higher than his career average of 56.2.

“Seventy-one percent is something you don't do a lot,” said Vermette, who ranks No. 1 in the NHL in faceoff winning percentage in the playoffs. “I've been around enough to know that. You want to reach for that, that's for sure. Fifty-five is pretty good — you want to be above that.”

Vermette won just 50 percent of his faceoffs in 19 regular-season games with the Hawks, then 4 of 9 in Game 3 vs. Nashville. Since then he has been nearly unstoppable.

The 32-year-old said it helps to have familiarity with teammates. He also looks at video with faceoffs coach Yanic Perreault to identify opponents' tendencies. But even that only goes so far.

“Once you've been around playing against these guys, you kind of know what's going on,” Vermette said. “You try to adjust accordingly. But with that being said, you want them to adjust to you.”

Said Quenneville: “He won several big faceoffs in our own end, and it helps us. He did a good job. I thought he progressed in his 5-on-5 play, as well.”

Vermette admitted there is an element of luck to winning a faceoff as well, saying the difference between winning and losing “is slim” and can be just a matter of “a few bounces here and there” that move a guy's percentage up or down by 2 or 3 points.

But those bounces have been going Vermette's way of late, and it has been paying off big time for the Hawks.

“You try to put more attention to details in the playoffs. Everything is magnified,” Vermette said. “You want to give yourself a better chance, and after the faceoff, you start with the puck or you're chasing. That's a real key for the game.”

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