A LOT can be taken from staring into a player’s eyes from inches away as you wait for the puck to drop.

A bit like a game of chicken you are waiting to see who makes the first move, whilst also taking in your surroundings thinking about where you can put the puck to set your team on its way.

It is not about luck, there is skill involved with reaction times and different tactics.

Face-off wins is a stat that we keep and often our better face-off players always top of the stats.

Depending on where the face-off is we have plays or what we want to do straight after the face-off.

The centre will try and win it to a certain player. There are options there, he can win it forwards, backwards or tie up the player.

Particularly in the D-zone we will try and win it back and we’ll have a set play whether it is a passing play or a hard rim play to the far side.

Depending on how the face-off is won, if it is a clean win you will try and make a break-out pass, but if it is stuck in the middle you are trying to get it into a low danger area, which is either out of your zone completely or in the corner, or on the wall, where it is less likely for them to get a scoring opportunity.

Manchester, for example, have a play where they will swap a forward for a defensive player and go back to where the defender will stand and then move in, so they are the types of things we prepare for.

There are quite a few rules that go into it as well. Players have to have their feet in certain positions and the away team player has to put his stick down before the home team, as that is seen as a disadvantage, and also around the face-off if players are encroaching then that can result in someone being kicked out of the face-off.

If a game is close and we decide to pull the goalie, often that is when face-offs come in to play a lot.

If we can get one in their end we will look to put in a centre who is good at winning face-offs, like Adam Harding, and often that is when there is a time-out and Ryan will go through a set play that he wants you to attempt.

It is not something that is practiced so much because we only have a certain amount of time on the ice during the week, so practicing very specific skills like that is not always easy but it can prove to be an important part in if the game is won or lost.