Paul Cotter says he is “passionate” about winning faceoffs after Vancouver shifted him to centre to start the season.
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Paul Cotter arrived at Vancouver Canucks training camp as a winger but began the regular season in the middle, a move that has also placed him among the team’s leading performers early on.
After Filip Chytil was injured in the team’s first preseason game, Vancouver head coach Manny Malhotra moved Cotter to centre, keeping the same roster options while relying on Cotter’s ability to play both positions. Cotter said the switch has helped him be “versatile,” adding, “You need a centreman, I can do it. You need a wing, I can do it.”
Through the first two games of the season, Cotter has been described as the Canucks’ best faceoff man, winning 54.5 per cent of his draws in that span.
Cotter’s attention to faceoffs is rooted in his past performance. In his last two seasons with the New Jersey Devils, he took 210 faceoffs and won 109 for a 51.9 per cent success rate. Cotter also said faceoffs were his “biggest strong suit” heading into the NHL draft and that it is “just a weird little thing that I’m passionate about.”
Asked about how he approaches the matchup of each draw, Cotter said he studies what opponents are likely to do, saying, “I love it. There were a couple draws against McDavid and Draisaitl that I knew exactly what they were gonna do,” and that the process leaves him “five steps ahead” by planning how he will respond.
With his early offensive role increasing as well, Cotter was skating in a top-six situation alongside Liam Öhgren and Brock Boeser at Friday’s practice. Malhotra said Cotter’s ability to play both wing and centre helps the team create different looks and line combinations, citing Cotter’s confidence in taking faceoffs in situations that allow him to “go out there and take a faceoff.”
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