Watching Bergeron, Kopitar helped Sens Claude Giroux in faceoff circle

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Claude Giroux says his solid skills and instincts in the faceoff circle, the ability to win possession when the puck is dropped, is about watching and learning, with some good timing mixed in.

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Giroux says he’s studied others, guys like Patrice Bergeron and Anze Kopitar, and tried to take what he could from their ability to win a high percentage of the faceoffs they were involved in.

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“There are a few guys, if I like what they do, I try to learn,” Giroux, who’s been in the NHL since 2007, said. “It was never something we worked on much in practice. You look at the best faceoff guys in the league; you study what they do and why they’re winning. As you get older, you find tricks that work for you. What works for me might not work for somebody else.”

Giroux has won 57.4 per cent of his 484 faceoffs through 33 games. Pittsburgh Penguins star Sidney Crosby is among the best, with a 60.7 per cent success rate (495 wins in 815 faceoffs). Others who are good at what they do include New Jersey’s Michael McLeod (66.3 per cent in 495 draws), the New York Rangers’ Vincent Trocheck (62.4 per cent in 651 draws), Toronto’s John Tavares (60.8 per cent in 632 draws), the Los Angeles Kings’ Kopitar (57.9 per cent in 677 draws), Edmonton’s Leon Draisaitl (56.4 per cent in 676 draws) and Calgary’s Elias Lindholm (55.1 per cent in 742 draws).

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For Giroux, it’s also about awareness, paying attention to the player he’s lined up against.

“You’re trying to get a read off the other guy,” Giroux said. “You try to think about what he’s going to do. If the guy has been in the league for a few years, I already know a bit about what he’s trying to do. When a new kid comes in, it’s a little harder. I don’t know what he’s he’s going to be trying to do. So, you try to get a read.

“There’s a lot to it. But I try not to overthink it. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you get unlucky. There are a lot of things that happen; you need your wingers to help you out, too. (Faceoffs are) important, it’s a lot easier to start with the puck.”

THE FIX IS IN: The Senators spent plenty of time at Wednesday’s early-afternoon practice in Seattle doing drills to try to fix some of their breakdowns.

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“What we addressed is we have to work harder, compete harder,” Senators coach Jacques Martin told TSN 1200’s Gord Wilson. “We have to have better support. Too often we’re losing battles because it’s 1-on-2. Some of the drills we did were specifically for that, trying to (work on) breakouts, D-zone coverage and 2-on-2 boxing out.

“There was more attention to detail. We have to have better habits and be focused. These guys can do it. It’s a matter of putting their minds to it. A good example is Vancouver. Last year, Vancouver was a team that was struggling and (the Canucks) turned it around pretty quick. There weren’t too many changes in their personnel, it’s just how they’re playing (this season).”

Wilson asked Martin whether bad puck luck was hurting the team and maybe things would swing more in the team’s direction.

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“Puck luck you don’t control,” Martin said. “You have to work on things you have control over. You may play a great game and lose, I’m OK with that. It’s about how we play. We have to be hungrier, we have to be stronger on our sticks. We have to show more determination.”

LOOK AHEAD, NOT BACK: Senators defenceman Travis Hamonic was asked about putting Tuesday’s game in the rear-view mirror.

“Whether it’s a win or a loss, you have to move forward,” he said. “We still have a lot of games left on the trip and a big one (Thursday night) for us in a hard building to play, against a really good, fast team. As sour a taste as (Tuesday night) left in our mouths, we have to go over the aspects of our game we need to execute better in and implement those for (Thursday). Having a forward-moving mindset is important.

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“You wouldn’t have wanted to draw it up this way. But it’s the hand we’re dealt. We laid an egg (Tuesday). We can’t dwell on it. It’s a long road trip. None of the other teams are going to feel sorry for us. We have to put our heads down, put our nose to the grindstone, keep working and keep pushing. It starts with a big one (Thursday), in the first period, especially.”

Hamonic said when the schedule gets busy (the Senators have 15 games in each of December and January), there’s not as much practice time, so it’s important to make it count.

“In (Tuesday’s game), there were some moments where we weren’t executing like we should have been to the standard we want to have inside our dressing room,” he said. “It bit us. It seems like the schedule is moving so quickly we don’t get a ton of really good practice days so it was nice to get some of those reps in. We did some line rushes, some battle drills; that’s important.”

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