After each period of every game I attend, I pick up a stat sheet and look at two things: Which players have played the most minutes and how each team has done in the faceoff circle.

Just a habit I picked up a long time ago, but it often tells me about the story within the story we are seeing on the ice.

Since hockey is all about puck possession, who is controlling the game in the faceoff circle is all important. And you can often tell who is going to be involved in the important faceoffs in the waning moments of the game by the amount of ice time a coach is giving them as the game goes along.

And talk of faceoffs reminds me the most of a trip I took to Detroit to see the Red Wings host the in the Western Conference championship series following the 1994-95 season.

What made the upcoming Stanley Cup Finals matchup so important that season is that each of the 48 regular-season games and playoffs were played in the same conference similar to Major League baseball before inter-league play became a part of the game.

The first person I saw when I entered the press box that night was the late John Cunniff, a former NHL coach who was then scouting for the New Jersey Devils, who were coincidentally playing the Philadelphia Flyers in the Eastern Conference Finals.

I got to pick Cunniff's brains that night, sitting next to him. There was a lot of worry in his voice and on his face as he watched the Red Wings, who went 33-11-4 in the regular season.

"They have a lot of weapons," Cunniff said, talking about the eventual West champion Red Wings. "They were third in the League in goals (180) and first in goaltending (allowing 117). You see names like Steve Yzerman and Sergei Fedorov and Dino Ciccarelli -- and Paul Coffey, a defenseman, led them in scoring.

"But what worries me most is how dominant they are on faceoffs. I've seen a couple of times in these playoffs when Detroit won a faceoff on a power play and the entire two minutes was spent in the opponent's zone -- or until a goal was scored by the Red Wings. That's scary."

Cunniff seemed to jot something down after every faceoff, from the size and strength the Keith Primeau used to maul faceoffs away from his opponent, to the guile of veteran Steve Yzerman and the quickness of Sergei Fedorov.

The Wings won the faceoff battle that night 63-39 and the game 2-1 in double overtime to win the best-of-seven series 4-1.

A few days later I was back in Detroit for the Finals, where I ran into old friend Scott Stevens, captain of the Devils.

"It's a nice feeling when your coach taps you on the back and says he wants you to take an important faceoff. Especially if you haven't been able to contribute offensively in the game." -- Red Wings' Steve Yzerman

I asked him what he feared most about the Red Wings -- and he, too, talked about the importance of battling with Detroit to win faceoffs.

"Some games it seemed like they had the puck for the entire two minutes of a power play -- or until they scored," Stevens said. "If you lose a power-play faceoff, you could lose 30 seconds of that power-play time. Same thing with a penalty kill. If you win that faceoff, you can gain 30 seconds of possession."

Simple terms. Long odds for the Devils -- it seemed, until Primeau sustained a stomach-muscle injury early in Game 1. The Red Wings still had Yzerman and Fedorov to take faceoffs, but Primeau had the hot hand.

The Red Wings lost Game 1, 2-1, and Primeau wound up missing Game 2 and playing at a less-than-effective level in Games 3 and 4. Without Primeau, Red Wings Coach Scotty Bowman knew the tide had turned before Game 2.

"We're going to try and play a game without faceoffs," he told me, laughing.

Since hockey is all about puck possession, who is controlling the game in the faceoff circle is very important.

The Devils went on to sweep the series.

"Some players have the hands of a pickpocket and win faceoffs quick and clean. Others have to use their body and bull their way to win a faceoff," Primeau, who now plays for the Philadelphia Flyers, told me a couple of years ago, crouching to demonstrate how he became one of the top faceoff men in the NHL.

Primeau estimates almost 50 percent of all faceoffs are won cleanly. The rest are where the hand-to-hand combat takes over.

"When I was in Detroit," Primeau recalled, "Scotty Bowman advised us not to try to win the faceoffs cleanly because the percentage was against you. He preached that everyone on the ice had an important job to win a scramble for the puck. Even the goaltender, when we were in our own zone."

I wouldn't say the Devils won that series in the faceoff circle, but they certainly overcame a real obstacle. And it was the third year in a row that a faceoff or three became a dramatic part of who won/and lost the Stanley Cup.

To underscore the drama, let me take you back to 1993 and Game 2 of the Finals between the Montreal Canadiens and Los Angeles Kings, with Los Angeles leading in the series 1-0 and leading in the game 2-1.

With 1:45 left, Montreal coach Jacques Demers called goaltender Patrick Roy over to the bench for an extra attacker. Roy looked at Demers like he was crazy, fearing the Kings winning the faceoff and scoring into the Canadiens empty net.

"Kirk Muller will win the faceoff," Demers told Roy, with no doubt in his voice. "Don't worry about it."

Muller did win that faceoff, leading to defenseman Eric Desjardins' goal, which sent the game into overtime. Desjardins scored again in sudden death to win it.

The Canadiens, with Muller and Guy Carbonneau taking the important draws, beat the Kings in five games to win their 23rd Stanley Cup.

"Winning faceoffs is one thing. Some faceoff statistics are just for show," former Kings coach Barry Melrose said at the time. "But Montreal won all the key draws -- on the power play, penalty killing and in the final minutes of a period ... or the game."

Just because there can be 70 or 80 faceoffs in a game, don't disregard the importance of winning each one.

In 1994, the Rangers' 54-year Stanley Cup drought ended against the Canucks. But in Game 7, with the Rangers up 3-2 and the Cup on the line, the last 1.6 seconds were the longest. It came down to one last faceoff.

"Time stands still," Rangers defenseman Brian Leetch said at the time. "You skate for what you think is about a minute and a half, but you look up and only 20 seconds are gone and you have another important faceoff to win."

With Canucks goalie Kirk McLean pulled, Craig MacTavish won the last faceoff for the Rangers and knocked the puck into the corner, clinching the Cup win.

"Mac was like a robot out there," Mark Messier told me. "I don't think he lost a draw down the stretch."

MacTavish, now the head coach in Edmonton, never will forget all the faceoffs he had.

"I remember my stick getting heavier and heavier," he told me a short while back. "Actually, I'd like to get a copy of those tapes and show them to my centers now. We work on it in practice, but when it comes to games, opponents often pull our pants down and spank us in those situations."

Former New Jersey Devils coach Larry Robinson refers to faceoffs down the stretch and in the playoffs as "life and death."

Winning a faceoff is like controlling the line of scrimmage and giving a quarterback another chance to survey the defensive backfield. Losing the draw is like throwing an interception or fumbling.

He recalls vividly the Jason Arnott faceoff win in their own zone that allowed the Devils to break out and lead to Patrik Elias centering a pass to Arnott for the double-overtime winner against Dallas in 2000.

Just because there can be 70 or 80 faceoffs in a game, don't disregard the importance of winning each one. On a simplistic level: "The object of the game is puck possession, and where does puck possession start but on the faceoff?" says Primeau.

And though the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim lost to the Devils in the Finals last spring, a case could be made for the surprising Ducks making it to the finals/and extending the series to Game 7 because of faceoffs.

Case in point: Overtime of Game 3. Anaheim's Adam Oates stepped into the faceoff circle to the right of Devils goalie Martin Brodeur. Oates won the draw from Pascal Rheaume back to defenseman Ruslan Salei. Salei snapped a shot on goal that beat Brodeur and won the game. After going on life support down 2-0 in the series, the Ducks suddenly had a heartbeat.

Success in the circles helped the Ducks force Game 7. In their wins in Games 3, 4 and 6, they won 61.8 percent of the draws (134 of 217), including 63 percent each in Games 3 and 4.

And Oates was seen coaching some of the other Anaheim centers on the fine art of faceoffs during the series. That prompted injured New Jersey center Joe Nieuwendyk to begin working with Devils faceoff men after practices.

In other words, the ability to win faceoffs is a special skill that grows in importance down the stretch.

Winning a faceoff is like controlling the line of scrimmage and giving a quarterback another chance to survey the defensive backfield. Losing the draw is like throwing an interception or fumbling. Well ... you get the idea.

"You can have all the talent and skills in the world, but if you don't win the little battles, the intangibles, you don't win," Kings coach Andy Murray says. "There are three things you can work on in practice -- power plays, killing penalties and faceoffs. When I got here (in 1999-2000), we weren't very good on faceoffs. And that's being kind.

"I made it a practice that we'd spend at least 10 minutes each day on faceoffs. And a lot of times (then assistant coach) Dave Tippett would stay out there longer with the centers."

Tippett, who helped make the Kings' special teams one of the best in the NHL before getting the head coaching job in Dallas last season, was one of the best faceoff men during an NHL playing career spent with the Whalers, Capitals, Penguins and Flyers from 1983-84 through '93-94.

Even now, at a practice, Tippett will take his centers aside and will stand in the faceoff circle, holding a puck attached to 12 feet of string. After dropping the puck, he'll reel it in, and his pupils will take draw after draw.

"We all got tired of chasing after pucks," Tippett says of his rope-a-dope faceoff lessons. "This way, you get more draws, more practice and there's less standing around."

"Some players have the hands of a pickpocket and win faceoffs quick and clean. Others have to use their body and bull their way to win a faceoff." -- Philly's Keith Primeau

In a recent poll I conducted, the names most often mentioned in the best-in-the-faceoff-circle top dozen included: Toronto's Nieuwendyk, Montreal's Yanic Perreault, Carolina's Rod Brind'Amour, Detroit's Yzerman, Dallas' Mike Modano, New York's Mark Messier, Philadelphia's Primeau, Phoenix's Daymond Langkow, Columbus' Todd Marchant, Colorado's Joe Sakic, Vancouver's Trevor Linden and New Jersey's John Madden.

When a player comes on the ice just to take an important faceoff and then goes to the bench, you know either the team isn't very good on faceoffs -- or this guy is dynamite in the faceoff circle.

Don't ever underestimate the fine art of faceoffs.

"It's a nice feeling when your coach taps you on the back and says he wants you to take an important faceoff," says Yzerman. "Especially if you haven't been able to contribute offensively in the game.

"I'd like to call winning a faceoff a science, but, to me, it's more a knack."

Obviously, when I look at the stat sheet and study who is best in the faceoff circle, that says I think faceoffs are a little more than the knack of winning a couple important draws.

Think about it: Coaches often say the key to success in hockey is winning the majority of one-on-one battles. So isn't it appropriate the first and foremost one-on-one battle at the start of each game is a faceoff?

Larry Wigge has covered the NHL since 1969. He writes a column for each issue of Impact!